Never Say Goodbye
by BkWurm1
Summary: A Chlarky ending to Smallville.  Spoilers through ending of Season 9 Salvation  Story begins at Watchtower minutes before Clark falls from the tower.  Clark Kent is dead.  Chloe will stop at nothing to change that.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Never Say Goodbye

**Pairing:** Chlark!

**Rating:** PG-13 (for thematic elements)

**Spoilers through Salvation** (End of Season 9)

**Summary:** A Chlarky ending to Smallville. Story begins at Watchtower minutes before Clark falls from the tower. Clark Kent is dead. Chloe will stop at nothing to change that.

_Author's note: In Salvation, two of Chloe's lines grabbed me and wouldn't let me ignore them. When she told Clark she couldn't imagine living in a world without him and later all the suppressed emotions we heard in Chloe's voice when she told him she was proud of him. These two moments told me that no matter how hard Chloe tries to move on, in the end, it's Clark. It's always Clark._

**Part 1**

"Watchtower, this is Hawkman."

Chloe tied Watchtower's systems to the new Satellite and the communication system came back online. "I hear you Hawkman. Where are you?"

"I'm almost in Metropolis. I started back the moment I lost contact with Manhunter and the rest."

"The Kandorians knocked out access to most of my satellites. J'onn is on the other side of the earth. I can't reach him, Impulse, Aquaman or Canary."

"Watchtower, this is Stargirl, boy am I glad to hear you back on the air. Headed back to headquarters. Still no sign of the Kandorians. They all left."

"Cyb..g to a..ch..wer, C bor to Watc…"

"Cyborg? You're breaking up." She checked his transmission. He wasn't using the regular communicator. When the connection fizzled he must have jerry rigged something to make his transmission. He was barely in range, but he had the speed to shrink the distances fast. Not Blur fast, but it would get the job done.

"Skies ar cl r. No si.. of Ka orians."

"Return to base Cyborg." She needed to give the team new instructions. Frantically Chloe accessed cameras in and surrounding the Queen Industries building containing the earth station. Who could have snatched Ollie? Not the Kandorians. He told her that much before the signal was lost. What did she know? Only that they were fast and unfriendly.

Oliver was missing. Clark was leaving, maybe already gone. She needed to find Oliver. She didn't think about his declaration of love or the one she repeated. At the speed the intruders moved, both of them had to have been sure death awaited his capture. Just a casualty of war. But he wasn't going to die. They'd find him

. She couldn't say goodbye to Oliver and Clark on the same day.

Not that she'd said goodbye to Clark. She'd seen this choice coming. She even understood as he ran out of options he would make the sacrifice for the greater good and take the Kandorians away rather than let earth be subjugated and ruined. She would never see Clark again, but at least she'd always know he was out there somewhere, working to rebuild a new home. She just couldn't process that right now. Right now, all she could remember was she never got to say goodbye. Maybe it was just as well. She couldn't imagine what she'd say.

The radio activated again. "Hawkman to Watchtower. Strange funnel of light shooting up into the sky over Metropolis."

Oh, god, this was it. Clark was leaving. She felt lightheaded. Never again. She'd never see him again. Even as distant as they'd been to each other in the last year, she didn't know how she was going to get through this. The pain that she'd been holding back started to eat away at her insides.

"Monitor at a safe distance and report back," she instructed in a clipped voice. Her hands shook as she worked to broaden her search parameter on Oliver. She needed to sort through the odd incidents attributed to the Kandorians running amuck and weed out anything that might have come from another source.

Behind her, the stained glass double doors that served as the entrance to Watchtower opened. Chloe glanced over her shoulder. Stargirl had returned in a flash. Handy device, that staff.

"Courtney, I'm glad you are here. I need someone to check out the site where Oliver was taken."

"Green Arrow is missing? Did the Kandorians get him?"

"No, that much he was able to tell me before he vanished." She pulled up the air duct schematic on screen. "This is where they got him. Whoever took him is fast, powerful, and they travel in a pack. They came out of nowhere. They might be long gone, but it's our only lead."

"And you want me to go check it out. I'm on it," she promised with excitement.

Chloe printed the maze of ductwork and handed it to Courtney. "If there is any sign of trouble, just get out of there. I don't need anyone else missing."

"Don't worry. With this," she lifted her staff, "I can get out of a tight squeeze no problem."

"Good luck," Chloe called out as she left. The communications line activated, echoing in the tower.

"Watchtower, this is Hawkman." Chloe swallowed hard. Did she really want confirmation on what she knew was happening?

Yeah. She had to know for certain.

"Go ahead Hawkman."

"Confirmed that tower of light is taking the Kandorians away." Chloe stuffed her fist in her mouth to keep from making a sobbing sound. "But something's off. I can see two figures still on the rooftop. They're fighting."

"What? Who? Who is fighting?" Trembling, Chloe worked to retask the dedicated Watchtower satellite to cover the Metropolis skyline.

"I can't get close enough. The vortex created is destabilizing the Nth metal in my wings."

Chloe pulled up a shot of Metropolis. A beacon of shimmering golden light shot up toward infinity. Suddenly, it winked out. "Hawkman, what's happening?"

"Not sure. Someone got pulled into the vortex right before it…oh, by the gods!"

"Hawkman! Hawkman!" She pressed her headset against her ear but heard nothing but terrifying silence. What had he seen? The portal to the Kandorian's new home was closed. Was Clark gone with it? Her eyes glazed over with tears she refused to shed.

"Stargirl calling Watchtower."

Her throat felt tight, but she managed to answer the call. "Go ahead Stargirl."

"I'm entering the substructure of Queen Industries. Is everything ok? You sound strange."

Chloe cleared her throat. "I'm fine. Proceed with caution."

"Stargirl out."

Chloe kept trying to reach Hawkman. After a few minutes, he came back on line.

"Hawkman to Watchtower, I'm coming in hot." Chloe leapt from behind the keyboard and hit a button that activated the newly installed retractable window. It replaced the stained glass one Carter Hall tossed Oliver through when they first encountered the JSA. The colored glass replica slid open and seconds later Hawkman swooped in, struggling to hold on to his cargo. It took her only seconds to identify the limp body.

"Oh my god, Clark!" She gasped. For a moment, wild, zinging joy beat out any other emotion even though a part of her knew something was terribly wrong. In that first moment nothing mattered. Clark hadn't left! Then she saw the blood dripping from his middle and Chloe went cold. Carter laid Clark's body down and explained what happened.

"I saw him fall from atop the building. I caught him before he met pavement, but I'm still struggling with the residual affects of the Vortex on my ability to fly; I was barely able to get him back here." He unstrapped his great black wings from his back while Chloe swiftly assessed Clark's injuries.

She started at the top. Rapidly forming bruises darkened Clark's face. He had a split lip with blood trailing down his chin, multiple lacerations on his shoulders and probably his back too. An angry looking slash across his chest wept crimson, but what concerned her the most was a rising well of blood seeping beneath the hilt of the glowing blue dagger shoved into his gut.

"I don't understand," Carter said as he removed his helmet. "I thought he couldn't be hurt." Chloe moved to pull the knife out of Clark's stomach, but Hall covered her hand to stop her. "Removing it will only make the wound worse."

"No, you don't understand, the knife is what is making him vulnerable. I have to get it away from him and then he should be able to heal." She firmly grasped the hilt and pulled. Clark moaned and thrashed but Carter held him down. The blade reluctantly came out of its sheath. Blood bubbled up out of the gash. Chloe stripped off the purple overshirt she was wearing to try and staunch the flow. "Get that knife away from him and bring me towels, now!"

Blue kryptonite.

This was bad. Clark twitched and made choking sounds. "No, no," Chloe whispered. "You have to hold on. It's gone now. You can heal now." Blood saturated her top and oozed between her fingers.

"Here." Carter handed her the towels. She pushed a thick white cloth over Clark's wound.

"Come on Clark, you can do this." She glanced at his face. His skin was chalky and the red of his blood contrasted starkly against the blue tinge of his lips.

Hawkman knelt next to them. "He's bleeding out. The blade must have nicked an artery."

"No. He should be able to heal himself. Something's wrong. Hold this." She pushed Carter Hall's hands firmly over the now saturated towel and clambered to her feet. She ran across the room and leapt up the stairs two at a time. She picked up the knife Carter had carried away.

"The tip is broken off," she called over her shoulder. "There must still be a piece inside of Clark." She scooped up a medical kit she kept on hand and raced back to his side. Carter held a second towel against Clark's middle. Already a tinge of red was seeping through.

"Chloe," Carter said her name gently, "he's not going to make it." His eyes swam with sympathy.

For a second she faltered. Her breath hitched and her vision blurred. Then she dropped to her knees shaking her head.

"You don't know him. He's going to be ok. I just need to get the broken piece out."

She selected a tool she could use to retrieve the tip of the blue dagger and moved Carter's hands aside, pulling back the mound of cloth. Clark's blood continued to surge out. She inserted the large tweezers and moved them about, trying to feel the bit of crystal that was proving so deadly to Clark. Her exploration should have been causing Clark a lot of pain but he didn't move.

"Chloe, he's not breathing."

An icy fist squeezed her heart, but she kept searching his wound for the BlueK. Finally, her instrument scraped against something hard. Two more attempts and she slowly pulled the tip out. She dropped it in a small lead lined box she brought along for that purpose. She looked back at Clark. He was still. His chest wasn't rising.

She clutched his cold hand. "Clark, please. You can do this. Please come back to me. Heal!"

Carter touched her shoulder. "He's not there anymore. He's gone."

She wrenched away from his touch. "No! He's healing, look, the bleeding has stopped," she said pointing to the ugly puncture in his abdomen."

"Chloe, his heart stopped. It's no longer pumping his blood. That's the only reason he's not bleeding."

"No, no, no." She clutched Clark's hand to her chest and rocked back and forth, tears streaming down her cheeks. "He's not dead. He can't be. He didn't leave. He's here. He's still here. He can't be gone."

"I'm sorry." Carter tried to help her to her feet.

"No! Get away from me. I won't leave him. He's not going to die."

"Stargirl to Watchtower, come in Watchtower. Come in somebody!" Chloe vaguely realized Courtney had been calling for several minutes. Carter left her alone for the moment and took the call.

"Stargirl, this is Hawkman." Carter answered using the headset Chloe discarded when he'd dropped in.

"Hawkman! What's wrong! Where's Chloe?"

He glanced over to the middle of the room. Every line of her body bowed and ached with grief. Looking at her hurt, it made him remember the day he lost his true love. "She's here, safe."

"Ok, but tell her I think I have a lead on Green Arrow's kidnapping." Stargirl's skepticism quickly melted into her usual enthusiasm.

Hall replayed in his mind what Courtney just said and scowled. "The green bean was kidnapped?"

"Didn't Chloe tell you?"

He rubbed his hand through his beard. "We've been busy. You said you found a lead?"

"I think so, but I could use some help working it out. There's a message inscribed. It sure looks Greek to me. Here I'm sending a photo." 

Ancient languages were his specialty and he recognized the letters right away. "That is Greek, maybe some Latin as well."

"That's what I said. There are messages all over down here. I know enough to recognize the language but I can't translate anything. I need your help."

He got the location from her. "On my way."

Carter returned to find Chloe leaning over Clark's body, pressing her hands to his temples and his neck and back down to his fatal wound. To Carter, it looked like she was trying to use the force of her will to make Clark come alive, but he had seen death enough times to know there wasn't anything they could do.

"Chloe, I have to go."

"What? Where?" She whipped her head around to look at him, her movements jerky and out of control. She shook her head. "No, I need your help. I can't heal him but if I can get Clark to the Fortress, then Jor-El can save him. He's done it before."

"There's no point. You were there when Clark reported that the crystal interface at his fortress was destroyed. There's nothing more we can do for Clark."

"I have to try. Please," she pleaded. "I know what I'm doing."

"So do I." He knelt beside her. "It's called denial."

"No, you don't understand."

"Believe me, I do understand. I know what it's like to watch someone you love die, to be unable to do anything to stop it from happening." He stood and stepped away to strap his wings into place and pick up his helmet. "But there is something we can do to save Green Arrow. You need to put this aside for now and man your station. One thing I've found to be true is there will always be time for grief. It will still be there later. Don't add to it with inaction now."

He pointed to the command center of Watchtower. "We need our eyes and ears. Are you going to leave your team blind?"

Chloe looked down at the fallen form of her best friend, her first love, the man around whom she had built her life. Carter wanted her to walk away and leave Clark behind for good. She rose to her feet and slowly went to her workstation. "No, I won't leave the team without Watchtower." She told him without emotion.

"Good." Carter nodded succinctly, fitted his helmet, picked up his mace, and launched himself through the open window out into the night. The second he was out of view, Chloe darted from behind the keyboard and ran up the steps again.

She pulled a large silky red throw out of storage. She needed something slippery she could drag. Back downstairs, she rolled Clark's body on to the material. She called the elevator and locked it open while she got Clark inside. Then she ran back for the keys Clark left behind, glancing at the readout on her computer one last time. She wasn't leaving the team blind. Victor Stone, aka Cyborg should arrive at Watchtower in ten minutes. She'd be on the road back to Smallville by then. She wasn't going to give up Clark, no matter what it took.

The journey back to Smallville had never felt so long. She jolted and bounced over ruts as she turned into the drive for the Kent farm. The suspension on Clark's pick-up truck made for a rough ride, but there was no way she'd have been able to get Clark's six foot six frame folded up in her backseat. As it was, lifting him onto the bed of the pickup was a minor miracle.

One quick stop at the barn for the key and she'd be on her way to the caves. She left the truck running as she hustled to locate the hollowed out book and the key hidden inside. She found it on the floor next to his trunk. Metal disk in hand, she rushed down the stairs and toward the barn door when a familiar silhouette blocked her exit.

"Clark!" Lois called. "Where are you? I came to tell you I know everything. You must have known I'd figure out your true identity when you kissed me as the Blur." She kept coming and there was nowhere to hide.

Chloe stepped out of the shadow. "Lois, Clark's not here."

"But his truck is here and I really need to talk to him. Wait," Lois grabbed Chloe's arm when she would have brushed past her. "What did you hear me say?"

Chloe pulled out of Lois's hold. "I didn't hear anything," she denied and headed back to the truck. That meant crossing in front of the headlights.

"Oh my god! You're covered in blood."

Chloe paused and glanced down at her clothing. She had blood smeared all over her front. It caked her fingernails and covered her bare arms in rust colored smears. "It's nothing Lois, I'm fine." She tried to keep walking, but Lois caught her before she could escape, her hand closed like a manacle around her wrist.

"You can't be fine. That's blood and way too much of it. What the hell is going on?" Fear made Lois's voice more strident than usual

"Look Lois, I don't have time to explain. I need you to trust me."

"Why? What's happened? Why do I need to trust you? What are you doing with Clark's truck? Where is Clark?"

"Lois, please, there is somewhere I need to be, just let me go."

But Lois wouldn't let go. Instead, she dragged Chloe behind her as she circled the truck. She saw a bulky shadow in the bed of the pick up and pointed. "Tell me that isn't what I think it is?" She didn't wait for an answer before she yanked the canvas tarp aside. Even with light only coming from their vehicles crisscrossing headlights, Clark was easy to identify. So were his grave wounds. "Oh my god, Clark!" Lois dropped Chloe's wrist and climbed in the back of the pick up.

"Lois, get out of there. I don't have time for this."

"Chloe, I don't think he's breathing. This can't be right. He's the Blur, I'm sure of it. Oh, god, Chloe, we have to get him to the hospital!"

"We don't have time for that." Lois looked at her as if she was crazy.

"Time? Chloe, he's dying!" Big fat tears trickled down her cheeks.

Chloe stepped up on the back tire and used it to climb her way in the back. She had to get Lois out of there now. It seemed Clark had taken away the need for her to protect his secret identity so she didn't spare any punches. "Reality check, he's already dead." Lois pulled back as if she'd slapped her, but Chloe was done beating around the bush. She grasped Lois by the shoulders, "and if I don't leave now, he's probably going to stay that way!"

Lois pushed her away, shaking her head. "I don't understand. You're running away? I thought he was your friend? Oh god, Chloe, the blood, no, you couldn't have done this." She swiped the back of her hand through her tears, leaving traces of blood behind on her cheeks. "It was Zod, wasn't it?"

"You know about Zod?" Chloe asked incredulously.

"You know about the Blur!" Lois turned around the question. Chloe hesitated out of habit and Lois pounced on her verbally. "Don't lie to me; I can see it in your eyes. God, you knew all this time and you never told me? Is that why you were so in love with him as a kid?"

Chloe flinched. She'd given away a heart Clark never wanted long before she'd ever known his secret. "Lois, none of that matters right now. What matters is me getting Clark to the Kawatche caves."

"What? Chloe, are your nuts? He's the Blur; he just needs some time. That's what happened when Zod was shot. His powers healed him." Chloe grabbed Lois by the shoulders again.

"Listen to me. It doesn't work like that with Clark. He should never have gotten hurt in the first place. Zod was lying to you. Normally Clark can't get hurt, but Zod," her voice broke just thinking about it. She dug down to find her strength. "Zod used something to hurt him."

"Hurt him? You said Clark was dead."

"Yes, dead," Her own tears welled over, "God Lois," she swore, "I have to go right now." She jumped out of the back of the pickup. "Get out now our come with. I don't care." She hopped in to the cab and put the truck in gear. The window between the cab and the box was open so Chloe called over her shoulder one last warning. "Now, Lois. Get out now!"

Lois stood up, undecided, "I don't know what to do!"

Chloe hit the gas and made the choice for her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

The wheels spun for a second in the gravel driveway. When all four wheels found traction, the truck shot a head with a jolt toppling Lois backward to land on top of Clark. With the back window open Chloe clearly heard Lois's screech of horror and her muttered cursings as she scooted away.

"Chloe, slow down! Where are you going?"

Chloe answered but didn't slow down. "I told you, the Kawatche caves." She turned onto a back street and drove the familiar gravel road. Too many times, she'd taken this route with panic welling up and fear ripping at her gut, but this was the worst. This time she wasn't racing to expose a brain interactive construct posing as a mentor or hurrying to save Clark from a rash judgment that would have haunted and eaten away at his soul. This time she didn't just suspect Clark was in trouble or know he was going to need saving soon, no, this time he was already lost and only Jor-El could find him.

The drive went by in a blur, with Lois screeching questions and crying hysterically. Chloe mostly tuned her out, concentrating on getting to her destination. She parked away from the official entrance. She used a side tunnel just for this purpose; one Clark had shown her long ago. She put the truck in park, turned it off leaving the keys in the ignition and reached for the glove box. Clark always kept a couple flashlights in there despite his lack of need, a habit his father had instilled in him and one that was handy for her now.

"Where are we? What are we doing out in the middle of nowhere?" Panic was making Lois louder and more shrill than usual.

"Lois, keep your voice down. Here." She handed her a flashlight and then lowered the tailgate with a squeak and a clank. She pulled aside the canvas that still partially concealed Clark and grabbed the slick red material bunched next to him. She spread it out on the rocky ground like a picnic blanket. Lois dropped softly to the ground, her light bobbing in the night.

Chloe hesitated, there was no easy way to get Clark on the blanket. She grabbed his leg and tugged at his dead weight.

"What are you doing with him?" Lois sounded horrified.

"Lois, I told you," she snapped, her fears for Clark leaving her on edge, "if I can get him inside these caves there is a place I can take him that can help him."

"I don't understand." Lois shook her head and whimpered.

Chloe stopped what she was doing, closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. If she didn't manage to keep calm then there wasn't any hope for Lois. She pulled Lois into a brief hug and then spoke in a calm, conciliatory tone. "I know, this is hard and I know you don't understand and I don't have time to explain everything, but I know you want to help Clark." Lois stiffened in her arms.

"The Blur is a hero, but…but Clark lied to me. He's not who he pretended to be. I don't know who he is."

Chloe shined her light in Lois's face. Her pupils were dilated and she sounded off, as if she had already forgotten that Clark was the Blur. The shock of the evening was getting to her, but Chloe needed her help. "Fine, don't think about Clark," she continued, using the same placating pitch and rhythm as before, "think about the Blur. You would do anything to help the Blur, right?"

Lois nodded. "Yes, that's right. He makes me feel special. Like I'm helping to save the world."

"Yes, that's what you are doing now. You're helping the Blur. The world needs him." I need him, she said silently to herself. "Look at me Lois." She shook her a little and the focus came back into her cousin's eyes. "Can you do this?"

Lois blinked a few times and then nodded. "Yes. Yes, I can do this. You grab his legs and I'll take his shoulders." Her voice gained strength as she spoke. They tugged and pulled. He was heavier than Lois expected and he landed roughly on the ground. Chloe dropped to her knees to brush away the dirt clinging to his cheek, cupping the side of his face briefly before she tugged him to the right and adjusted his body so he was lying on the material she'd brought along for dragging. It was an incredibly tough new polymer Oliver's company was testing, slick, flexible, and breathed like cotton.

Oliver.

She hadn't had a chance to think about him since she left Watchtower. She hoped the team was successful, hoped he was all right but when push came to shove, she knew now, Clark still came first. Her wounds may have scarred over, but sometimes the healing was deceptive. Her scars may have been thick, they were also her greatest point of weakness and in the face of this new horror, they ripped wide open.

Wounded or not, she needed to stick to the plan and that didn't include time for self-pity. She pulled out a couple old work jackets she found stuffed behind the bench seat in the truck and dropped them on top of Clark. Then she directed Lois to grab two corners and they half dragged, half-carried Clark's body into the caves.

"I can't see anything."

"Wedge your flashlight under your arm."

"I don't like this. I didn't like the Marvel Caves in Branson, Missouri; I didn't like the Jewel Caves in South Dakota and I don't like it here. This is just creepy. What are we doing here?" Lois implored again.

"Keep walking. This place is more than what it seems."

"I know Clark once was fascinated by these dusty caverns but its ancient history. I can't make sense of us being here, but you keep saying this place is important so why don't you spell it out for me?"

"Lois, I don't have time…"

"Don't give me that. We're moving as fast as we can. Multitask. I know you can do it. Now as politically correct as I'd like to be, I don't give a damm about preserving the history of some centuries old native cave paintings, so tell me, why would the Blur?" Lois stopped moving. "Tell me or I won't budge."

"I'll tell you, just keep moving. The caves are important for two reasons. The cave paintings tell the story of…"

Lois interrupted and recited "The Kawatche First Nation coming into contact with a mysterious man from the stars as well as an ancient prophecy about two who were as brothers turning into the bitterest of enemies." At Chloe's surprised look, Lois shrugged. "What? Just because I don't care about them doesn't mean I don't know the story. Olsen left behind some research at the Planet. I read his notes, but I can't see any connection between old Indian legends and the Blur."

Chloe bit her lip, uncertain how to answer. "The Kawatche people believe that it was Clark's ancestor who came to them hundreds of years earlier."

"What? So they think that Clark has an alien for an ancestor. Please." She scoffed. "What's the other reason the cave is important?"

Since they were going to be there in a matter of minutes, Chloe couldn't see the harm in telling her. "There is a room that can be used as a portal to another place. That other place is where I need to take Clark." Lois stopped moving.

"Lois, come on, we need to keep going."

She shook her head and dropped her corners of the red, make shift stretcher. "This is insane. There can't be portals to other dimensions here in Smallville. It's Smallville! We're in Kansas for Pete's sake!"

"I never said to another dimension."

"Then to where?" She demanded with her hands stuck on her hips.

"The arctic."

She chocked back a laugh. "What are you planning to do? Cryogenically freeze Clark until someday they find a cure for stab wounds? Oh god, what am I doing?" Lois threw her hands up in the air.

"Please, we have to keep moving." The summer after her senior year when Clark was shot and died in the hospital, his body went missing from the morgue within an hour. Chloe didn't know how significant that timeline was, but she was racing against that clock. The drive from Metropolis ate away a half-hour and she used up too much time trying to convince Lois to get out of her way. Time was slipping past. She could feel it.

Lois took a step back and held up her hands. "I can't do this anymore. This is crazy. Clark's related to some alien and you want dump his body in the arctic."

"You asked and I told you," she ground out between her teeth.

"Chloe, this can't be right. You have to stop. Look at him!"

Chloe's eye followed where Lois pointed. In the dim lighting, Clark's paleness seemed to glow and for as often as she had teased him about only having one expression, now she saw what blank really looked like.

"Admit it Chloe, there isn't anything, anyone can do to help him. He's dead. The Blur's dead and Zod is still out there using the Book of Rao for he and his evil alien cohorts."

Chloe shook her head. "No, we're sure Clark took care of him and the Book transported the Kandorians to a safe new planet."

"How can you know that?" Lois demanded belligerently.

Chloe clenched her fists and shouted, "Because Clark was sacrificing himself to take them away when Zod tried to kill him!"

"He didn't just try, he's succeeded, remember? Zod killed the Blur and he's gone. Dead is as good as zapped to another planet." Lois blinked and remembered her conversation with Clark in the barn. "He knew he was going away, that had to be why he wanted me to take the African job." Her lower lip quivered. "He didn't even say goodbye."

"He didn't say goodbye to me either but he's still here and I'm not about to quit on him now. Now either help me or get out of my way," she growled.

"Chloe you are not being rational."

"I mean it Lo, get out of my way or so help me, I will take you down," she vowed in a low even tone. All the anger, fear, and frustration she felt vibrating through her body focused into a savage promise. Lois shrank back and swallowed hard. Still, instead of just moving to the side, Lois bent and picked up her corners and they continued silently down the corridor.

A minute later, they were at the chamber. Chloe rushed ahead to prop up a flashlight in the corner. Its light bounced off the stone ceiling and provided enough illumination for her to see the symbols inscribed on the stone altar.

"Help me get Clark in here."

"Is it safe?"

"Nothing will happen until I use the key." She fished the grey disk out of a pocket and held it up briefly.

"Those markings, they're like the ones on the Book of Rao."

"Same manufacture." She tucked the key away while they dragged Clark the remaining few feet. Chloe picked up one of the work coats she'd found in the truck and put it on. It was only a little large, probably Martha's.

She lifted the second jacket, also sized to fit Martha, and held it out to Lois. Neither work coat was winter ware but, Chloe figured, they should bring some protection from the frozen world they were about to enter. They were fortunate springtime had come to the arctic. The long days and short nights allowed the temperatures to rise to near the freezing point, balmy by arctic standards.

"Lois, come on." Chloe shook the jacket at Lois, but Lois was busy backing out of the stone room.

"Get my molecules scrambled? I don't think that's for me." Lois's eyes were wide with lots of white showing, like a terrified horse on the verge of panic.

Chloe stepped to the edge of the chamber and tried to soothe her. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I know everything is happening fast and I know it is a lot to ask of you, to just trust me, but I think that Jor-El, that's a super advanced computer program on the other side of the portal, I think it responds to deep emotion."

Chloe thought back to when she'd stumbled into the Fortress the first time, Clark had to beg Jor-El to let him leave. Clark told stories of both his parents imploring Jor-El for help when they were at the end of their rope and receiving it. When Chloe brought Kara to the Fortress, simple logic hadn't swayed the impassive AI; the power of the fortress activated only after her final impassioned appeal. This, this was asking for so much more. "You love Clark. I could really use you there."

"Love him?" Lois took another step back, shaking her head. "I don't know; I don't even know him. I thought I was planning a future with the most normal guy in the world: steady, just ambitious enough, looked good in a suit and someone happy to be there to support me and what I want. I already stated questioning just how supportive he was capable of being. Why do you think we broke up? Now I find out he lied to me the whole time about who he really is."

"But you know now." Chloe's throat tightened just a bit. "You get to have the whole package. The regular guy you love and the superhero."

Lois wrapped her arms around her middle and shook her head. "It won't work. The regular guy is a lie. As for the Blur, he's a fantasy. Like a celebrity crush. I figured that out a month into therapy. Talking to him was exciting. Helping him made me feel important."

Lois looked up and closed her eyes. "What the Blur does IS important. He might someday save the world, but I can't be the one wondering if he's coming home afterwards." She opened her eyes and looked at her cousin. "I can't do it. I know what I need and he isn't it. I spent my entire childhood knowing I would never be on top of the list, that I would never be the most important thing to the most important man in my life. I can't spend the rest of my life that way."

"But you love him. He…he loves you. Nothing else matters."

"It matters to me. I can't…he's not…" She shook her head sorrowfully. "The worst thing about it is he knows how I feel. I told him years ago when I broke up with Oliver for the final time. He knew and didn't care. How is that love?"

"Lois, you're not thinking clearly."

"No." She raised a hand to ward off any further persuasion. "My mind has never been clearer. I'm wondering if you're the one not thinking straight. Even if I believe this ancient relic will transport you to see Jor-El the Wizard, don't try to tell me it's safe. Do you really thing Clark would want you to take the risk?"

"I'm going Lois." Chloe's voice went hard. "There isn't anything you can do to stop me, so don't even try."

Lois said nothing more, recognizing a tone Chloe rarely used, but one that always meant back off.

Chloe quickly changed the subject. "In case…in case this takes a while, do you remember how to get back to the truck?" She couldn't quite bring herself to say aloud what had been running through her mind. Lois was right; the trip wasn't without danger. Perhaps it was best that Lois refused to go. Chloe knew Jor-El was capable of bringing Clark back; but there was always a cost.

"Yes, follow the corridor back, two lefts and a right and I'm out."

"Good. I'm going to give you an address to remember." She rattled off the location of Watchtower. "Take the elevator all the way to the top. Let them know I sent you." She gave Lois a quick hug.

Lois clung to her. "Chloe, you're acting like this is goodbye. Don't do this, whatever it is you're planning to do. If you're doing this for me, stop. I won't trade you for anyone and the Blur would never want you to sacrifice your self for him either."

"I have to do this Lois."

Lois pulled back. "Why? To save the world? Leave that to the likes of the Green Arrow."

"I'm not trying to be a hero Lois; I just have to do this."

Lois studied the determination in Chloe's stance. She sighed and nodded with unshed tears brimming in her eyes. "If you're right about this Jor-El character responding to emotion, you don't need me. I should have seen it. That mad crush, all that crazy love you had for Kent years ago; nothing's changed, has it?"

Chloe didn't know what to say. Lois was wrong; everything had changed. "I've had to learn a long time ago how to let Clark go, but not like this. I can't do it like this."

"What about Oliver? Do care how he feels?" She asked without any real accusation.

"I do. I never wanted to hurt him, and I hope he'll be ok, but,…it's Clark," Chloe finished simply, his name the answer to every question. She stepped away from Lois who watched with a mixture of emotions on her face, the most important being understanding. Her brash, older cousin had been her only confidant to how deeply she cared for Clark as a young teen and she stood witness now. Lois was right after all; nothing really had changed.

Chloe went to the stone altar in the center of the room, pulled the disk from her pocket, glanced at Clark's unnaturally still form on the floor and inserted the key.


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3**

Blinding white light.

The bite of the pure arctic air.

They had arrived at the Fortress.

She blinked, her eyes adjusting from the gloomy caves to the fortress's reflective white surfaces. Beyond the crystalline structure, a faint radiance peeked up over the tundra. The sun rose early in the arctic this time of the year. Chloe grabbed a corner of the red blanket and one of Clark's arms and pulled him toward the center of the fortress.

A pile of rubble sat where the crystal consol once sparkled. Next to the heap where Clark found Tess, Chloe saw smears of fresh blood, preserved in the frozen slush. Looking around, Chloe noted about a fourth of the ice pillars were dark, just as she remembered from her last momentous visit.

She could still picture Clark's shocked expression as she led a meek Davis away. She came through the portal to find them grappling in front of the open gate to the Phantom Zone, neither one backing down. Clark's recklessness fueled her temper. She'd let him have it. It was the last time he looked at her without a shadow in his eyes. If she had the chance, would she do it over again?

She sighed. Such questions were impossible. Without knowing there would be nothing left of Davis to save, how could she have let Clark callously and carelessly toss him in the Phantom Zone? Clark would have never forgiven himself and she still had nightmares of Clark sucked away along side Doomsday. Clark's choice to use the Book of Rao had been the equivalent of her nightmare coming to life. If they'd had any other way of preventing Zod's Armageddon, she'd have fought him tooth and nail.

She kept dragging Clark's heavy form until she was at the very center of the room. When she stopped, she was breathing heavily, from nerves or exertion, she didn't know. She tilted her head back and turned in a circle.

"Jor-El! Jor-El! Clark needs your help!" The fortress was silent. She heard the wind shudder past outside. She tried again.

"I know you are here. The portal still works so I know you are still here. Clark didn't have to use the crystals to speak with you. The broken crystals won't stop you if you want to help. You listened to me about Kara in the past, so I know you can hear me now."

"Zod and the Kandorians are gone, but Clark is still here. Zod stabbed him with blue kryptonite. He killed him, but I know you can bring him back, you've done it before!" Only her voice echoed back.

"This isn't Clark's destiny!" She cried out to the cavernous structure. "You couldn't have meant for him to die at the hands of Zod!" She faced another direction. "You can save him, please, please save him." Her voice broke.

No response. She'd been sure all she needed to do was bring Clark to Jor-El and he would act. Was it her fault nothing was happening?

"Kal-El is your son! You've spent years training him. Don't abandon him now!" She wet her lips, the moisture evaporating almost immediately. "If…if I'm the reason why you are silent, please, you cannot punish Clark for my actions." She looked around, desperate for a sign or a change. Nothing. The only change was the brighter glow of the fast approaching dawn.

She refused to give up. "Jor-El, I love your son. You know that! Everything I've done, right or wrong, was meant for his good. Please, I'll do anything, just don't let him die!" A cold wind swirled over her feet. Was that a sign? Was Jor-El listening? What was he waiting for? There was only one thing left she could say.

"Take me instead!"

The wind at her feet rose and swirled around faster. She wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to hold onto any heat.

"Restore Clark to life and let my life give back balance to the universe. I told you, I'll do anything, is that what you need? Jor-El! Answer me!" She demanded as tears tracked down her face. Suddenly, the air in the fortress changed, as if the atmosphere became charged with electricity. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.

"_You would offer your life in exchange?"_ A cultured, yet deeply resonant voice asked.

Fear tripped through her heart, but she answered without hesitation. "Yes, yes, anything, just don't let Clark die." A silent moment stretched out before Jor-El's AI spoke again.

"_There is nothing for me to do to save my son."_

Chloe couldn't breath. All the oxygen in the universe vanished and she buckled to her knees next to Clark's battered body. She shook her head and gasped for breath. "You can't mean that. Why bother speaking to me if you aren't going to do anything?"

"_I have misjudged the importance of your presence to my son's journey."_

"I don't understand." Was this some sort of Kryptonian grief consoling?

"_There exists a bond which I sought to sever. I believed it a hindrance to Kal-El's judgment."_

"A bond." Without thinking, she reached for Clark's cold hand comforted by the familiar weight and shape, agonized by the lifeless response. "Are you saying you did something to Clark?"

"_He battled Doomsday and returned to the fortress. In his weakened state, I had ways to make him susceptible to suggestion and alteration."_

Chloe felt a flash of ice, a cold premonition deep in her gut. "What did you do?" She asked in horror.

"_I believed he was too heavily influenced. He renounced his humanity and soon returned to immerse himself in training."_

Chloe sucked in sudden, short, intake of air, shocked and hurting on Clark's behalf for Jor-El's latest betrayal. "He is your son! He trusted you. You had no right," she accused.

Clark wanted so badly to connect to the only father figure he had left in his life. The man she'd briefly met, who loved sight unseen a son he hadn't known he had, could never have intended for his AI to act so presumptuously. That man respected what humanity could offer his son, that man had gone on to protect earth by creating the Book of Rao.

The gravity of what Jor-El had done to Clark continued to sink in. "Wait," she clutched at the material over her heart, clenching it hard in her fist as she suddenly comprehended the greater personal significance to Jor-El's confession, "you're saying you are the reason he tried to turn his back on his humanity." The reason he walked away from me, she silently added, suddenly too stunned to believe.

Jor-El didn't confirm or deny, but continued his narrative. "_The bond resurfaced as a distraction, it was too woven into his being to cut off completely, but I was able to redirect it so as to cause less interference."_

"Redirect?" She echoed without comprehension, not certain she wanted to understand.

"_To your female relation."_

"Lois?" Chloe shook her head in denial even as Jor-El's words began to make sense of the confusion she'd felt for months at Clark's sudden devotion to Lois, an intense connection that seemed to arrive out of nowhere.

"_Yes_," Jor-El continued. "_Though as time passed, my interference proved ill advised. His new attachment did not provide the same balance. His character gravitated toward a dark corner that left him more callous, careless and isolated to the extent that I greatly feared the sway over him which Zod or any of the Kandorians would wield. I did not fully comprehend what I had taken from Kal-El."_

"_Gradually though, his mind began reasserting the original connection I'd sought to sever, which even in its weakened state acted to affect his choices. Eventually Kal-El would have shaken off all influence, but with his death, my restraint on his mind has immediately ceased._"

"Is that a bad thing? You said the change left him careless and vulnerable! Why are you telling me this?"

"_Kal-El would have wished you the knowledge_."

Could this be Jor-El's version of an apology? It was cold comfort and not what she'd come for. Chloe shook her head and pushed his confession aside. "I don't care! None of that matters right now. Only Clark matters. You're here. He needs your help! You have to save him!" She pleaded. A moment of silence passed.

"_There is nothing in my power to do_."

In his tone, Chloe heard something final. She leapt to her feet and called his name. "Jor-El! Jor-El! Come back!" The air in the fortress felt still, lighter somehow. The morning sun shining over the barren snowfields made the walls glow and through the crystalline structure, a few shafts of light peeked through to fall directly on the snow packed floor. Jor-El's presence was absent from the fortress.

She had failed.

Chloe sunk to the ground, numb to the chill of her world. Jor-El was gone; she could feel it. Nothing he'd told her mattered, not without Clark. Jor-El wasn't going to save Clark. She closed her eyes and tears splashed down her cheeks. This was it. She really was going to lose Clark for good.

She scooted close to him, brushing back the lock of dark hair curling on his forehead. How could this be real? She stroked his cheek and ran her hand along his jaw line. She used her sleeve to wipe away the smear of dried blood on his chin. Chloe glanced down his torso, taking in the rest of him. She hated the jagged wounds exposed through his torn t-shirt and hated that he wore black. Black was symbolic of a separation from his humanity – a separation Clark never even chose.

She tugged at the bright red material on which he lay, trying to pull it over his chest. She couldn't wrap it all the way around; but by pulling it up over his shoulders she got enough material to cover his wounds. He looked like he was wearing a cape. She sniffed a little. He always liked capes. She remembered him playfully swooshing around in his Zorro costume during their freshman year in college. A red cape, his favorite color; yeah, he'd have liked that.

He was so pale, but in the golden light filtering through the fortress she could almost fool herself and pretend she saw color returning to his cheeks, but she knew better.

Suddenly she was cold from the inside out. Every tear felt like a drop of acid, too hot against her freezing skin and they wouldn't stop coming. She wiped at her face, the salt stinging her cracked lips, but she couldn't stop crying and soon her sobs grew too large to contain and they tore out of her, heaving through her body with a force that snapped her teeth together. She buried her head on Clark's chest, clinging to him and weeping. She couldn't do it. She couldn't say goodbye.

A semi-hysterical thought flittered through her mind. She didn't have to say goodbye anymore, not really.

With the crystal consol broken, the portal to the arctic became a one-way trip. She hadn't thought for a second about how she'd get home if she failed to save Clark. Failure was never considered. No one lived anywhere close to the fortress and she had no way of calling for help. Even if Lois left for Watchtower and convinced someone she was in trouble, the chances of anyone being able to get to her before she froze were slim, let alone anyone actually knowing where she waited.

Never say goodbye.

She let the idea play in her mind. She could close her eyes right now and do nothing but wait for the cold to take her. Freezing to death wasn't the worst way to go. Eventually you stopped feeling the cold and became very sleepy or got lost in hallucinations. Either or both ends might still be in store for her and fate might not require that she say goodbye, but she didn't want their lives to end like this, with meek acceptance on her part.

In all other aspects of her life, she was bold, stubborn, a fighter. She couldn't simply drift away in her sorrow. Trapped and virtually alone at the ends of the earth, she was left so few choices to make as she awaited her end; she needed to take control of what remained in her power to accomplish. She needed to say goodbye while she had the chance.

Chloe lifted her head from Clark's chest and edged even closer. She sat with her legs crossed beneath her and shifted his head so she could cradled it on her lap sideways. Then Chloe leaned over to brush her lips against his because there was no reason left not to do just as she pleased. There was no brave face to put on. No walls to hide her heart behind. Here, in the end, she could at least be completely honest.

"Love wasn't supposed to be like this." Crying left her voice sounded like she was gargling rocks, but this was her last chance to speak aloud all the things she kept quiet, so she ignored the pain in her throat. She stroked his hair and softly tried to explain even if she wasn't certain what she was trying to explain.

"No one is supposed to fall irrevocably into an unshakable love when they are fourteen, not unless you are Romeo or Juliet and well," she shrugged, "look how that turned out. I tried to tell myself it wasn't real, just something I'd grow out of and then I started hoping instead, that one day, you'd grow into it." She sniffed and played with the edge of the red blanket.

"You kind of know about that, though I did my best to pretend it meant nothing. You see, once before I sent you off to face Zod, that time with a kiss. I poured my heart into that goodbye, but I told myself if you came back to me alive, I wouldn't ask for anything more. If what was in that kiss wasn't what you wanted, then I'd let you go."

A tear rolled down her cheek. "I tried and then I tried harder. Then Brainiac happened and I don't entirely know what happened and somewhere in the mix I thought my love was strong enough to save you and Davis, but," she pulled her hands back into fists, "in the end I watched you cut me out of your life." Old tears mingled with the new and she had to look away for a moment. Chloe squinted against the sunlight coming in from eastern sky. The light was too strong to look into, but she appreciated the warmth on her back even if it did nothing to touch the ice she felt coating her insides.

Looking away from the beginning of the painfully bright morning that mocked her as she was fast approaching her ending, her glance fell once more on the man whose shy smile transformed Smallville Kansas from a prison sentence to the one place she couldn't imaging leaving.

"Oh Clark, I miss you so much." She caressed his cheek. "I miss your laugh, your toothy grin. I miss hanging out on the phone talking while doing laundry or catching whatever movie is playing at the cheap theater. I miss the way you blushed during love scenes. I miss pretending I was there to play with Shelby while secretly admiring the way you muscles moved while you did your chores. I miss the late nights chasing down leads together or whipping what we found into shape for the morning paper. I miss having you show up at work just because. It's been so long since I've had my friend and without you, I didn't feel like me."

She clasped his hand and stroked his brow. "When you walked away, I didn't know anything could hurt like that, so deep and cold. You came back, but not for me and then I blamed you for Jimmy and that wasn't fair. I wanted to hate you, hated myself because I couldn't. I tried to think of you as just another force of nature, like water or oxygen, something I and the world needed, but impersonal, but," she bit her lip to keep it from quivering but she couldn't control the quaver in her voice, "it's you and there's nothing impersonal about how I feel about you."

She cupped his cheek and ran her thumb over his full pouting lips. He hated when she called them that, probably because he thought it another tease about his moping habits. There was no denying it though; his mouth was beautiful. His red lips were full, lush and usually made her want to take them in tiny bites, but now, she just longed to remember the curve of his smile.

She tried, but had a hard time pulling up a recent memory; instead, she latched on to one of the few she had of her wedding. She and Clark were descending from the loft in the barn, she was clasping Clark's arm and at the landing, he looked over at her and smiled. She'd felt the warmth of his admiration all the way to her toes. In the past, she tried not to wonder why she couldn't remember anything before and almost nothing after that perfect moment, but the past didn't matter anymore.

"I'm running out of time a lot faster than I expected, the delusions are starting. I should be shivering and shaking but instead I'm so cold that you feel warm." She half- smiled, "You always were my favorite source of radiant heat." Her smile faded and she dared speak of what she'd just learned.

"Jor-El says you didn't choose to walk away. That he did something, something to make it happen. He also said the bond we share was getting past his interference. I'm not going to play 'the what if' game, there's too little time but I'm glad to know that maybe you still kept faith in your humanity, but if not, know that no matter what I said, I always did."

Chloe rested her forehead against his. She needed to be very close to make her final confession, in addition, the position helped block the sunlight from her eyes. They might as well have been sitting in a spotlight. She wondered absently if the ice crystals forming the fortress had a prismatic effect that amplified the light's intensity but the thought never fully formed. She mentally chided herself for delaying even now what she needed to say. She closed her eyes and let her heart speak.

"I love you Clark," she whispered against his temple. "Not only as my best friend, not as just a kind of extended family, but with every scrap of my affection, frustration, and passion - every bit of my being. I've loved you from the beginning and I know now, some things never end. Maybe you were never really mine, but you were always mine to love."

She sniffed. "The last time I told you my feelings you were unconscious. Boy, did I do one better this time." Her voice broke into a sob. "What I wouldn't give now to hear you say Lana's name."

"Chloe."


	4. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

"Tell me again," Oliver asked, "why couldn't Courtney have waited around to take me back to Watchtower?" He held his head hanging over the edge of the parapet surrounding the walkway just outside of Watchtower. He was waiting for the waves nausea to fade. At least this time he'd managed not to throw up until after they landed.

"I didn't tell you the first time around." Hawkman growled from the other side of the ledge.

Oliver retched over the building's wall one final time before querying, "Yeah, um, refresh my memory, why was that?"

Carter Hall crossed his arms and evaded the question. "You should just be grateful we came for your sorry green rear when we did."

Oliver was grateful. Hanging by his feet upside down was never his favorite position, at least not for long periods of time. Stargirl and Hawkman swooped in and chased off his kidnapper and then, before they cut him down from in front of the giant bullseye, their communicator's buzzed.

They left him hanging…literally…for a few minutes while they took their private conference call and when it was over, Courtney waved her magic wand and vanished leaving Hawkman to leisurely free him and then take the scenic route back to base. If he could get the world to stop spinning for five minutes, Oliver was certain he would be able to put his finger on what was off about his rescue.

"Hey, I was doing just fine on my own," Oliver claimed with more bravado than he felt. Then, since he figured there was nothing left in his insides to come back up, he stopped assisting gravity and turned to sit down on the roof with his back against the short wall. He groaned and closed his eyes.

God, he hated flying, he thought, grateful the world was no longer spinning even if it did still kind of sway back and forth. Jets, flying in jets was fine. Jets were great, especially the kind that came with leather seats, fully loaded bars and pilots who paid attention to who paid their salaries and didn't find it hilarious to do loop de loops just to see if they could make their passenger's face match his outfit.

"Please," Hawkman scoffed, "that furious fem was about to Swiss cheese you with her long bow. After target practice she probably was going to feed your scraps to her cybernetic pack of hounds."

"For the record, I don't think her metallic mutts cared much for meat." Oliver mumbled with his eyes still closed. "They dragged me out of the earth station with only a mild case of rug burn."

"If you show me your boo boos I'm dropping you off the building." Carter promised matter of a fact.

Oliver felt a different kind of queasiness. "Yeah, like I'd want you to kiss it and make it better." He shuddered. "Anyway, I'm just saying that those robo dogs could have torn me to shreds and didn't, so I think I could have convinced her to aim for the bull's eye without my manly form in the way. She mentioned a connection to Waller and Checkmate. Through them, she had heard of my special arrows and curiosity sent her calling. We had a love of archery in common."

"You wish she was after your 'special arrow' and as for things in common, it's a good thing her ego was the same size as yours. She etched her name, the names of what we figure belong to her precious pack and the Latin translation for 'Place of Stars' all over the passages where they nabbed you."

Oliver opened a single eye. "You don't find it at all suspicious that Artemiz the Huntress pretty much told you to look for her at the Observatory? Or that when you and Stargirl showed up, she lobbed one of my smoke bomb arrows at your feet for cover and simply left? She didn't even release the hounds a second time."

"I'll save my suspicions for later." Hawkman glanced at his communicator once and then walked over to Oliver, roughly pulling him to his feet. "Recovery time is over. Are you fit for duty?"

Oliver straightened his tunic, but didn't react to Hawkman's manhandling. "I'm ready. Are you ready to tell me what you're keeping from me? I know stalling when I see it. Why did you send Courtney ahead? What's going on?"

If possible, the expression of Hawkman's face became grimmer. "We've got a security breach in Watchtower. Goes by the name of Lois Lane."

"Lois?" Oliver frowned, surprised, but not alarmed. "Chloe can handle Lois." Carter's mouth went flat and suddenly Oliver was done asking questions. He pushed past Hall to reach the outside access hatch. He entered on the upper tier overlooking the heart of Watchtower.

Lois was in the middle of a melt down and nothing J'onn J'onzz or Courtney said or did was helping her calm down. Cyborg kept his head down, hunched over the keyboard Chloe normally manned and Canary was seated casually at the far end of the room looking bored. There was no sign of AC, who Oliver remembered should still be down in Australia, or Bart who should have been back at base, and just as he feared, no Chloe. Carter joined him after leaving his wings and helmet outside.

Lois was giving Canary competition in the 'voice as a deadly weapon' category. Watchtower's acoustics amplified a special shrill quality that made him want to cover his ears. She pushed away the glass of water Courtney urged on her.

"Unless it is a shot of whiskey, don't bother and don't bother telling me again to calm down!" She advanced on their resident Martian Manhunter. "I recognize you from the precinct. You're a detective, you work for the city and I pay my taxes so you work for me. Enough is enough, I demand you call the, the…urrrggg!" She tossed her hands up in the air. "I don't know who you should call, but she disappeared. How long was it supposed to take? I waited five minutes and she didn't come back and I was supposed to come here so dammit, do something!" She shouted and stamped her feet.

Oliver swore under his breath. So much for the hope Chloe was hiding out with the boys. "Lois!" He said her name sharply as he descended the stairs.

"Oliver!" She cried his name and met him at the bottom of the steps. "Thank god you are here. No one will do anything. You have to do something." Lois grabbed him by the collar.

Ollie grasped her shoulders. "Where's Chloe?"

"How the hell should I know?" Lois yelled back at him and smacked him on the shoulder. "That's what I've been trying to tell everyone. She vanished, but she never came back."

"What do you mean she vanished?"

"What do I mean vanished? Hello? Poof! Gone! Vanished! I told her not to go but of course, she got all serious and weepy and all 'it's Clark' and off she went. I told her not to go." Her face crumpled and tears leaked out the corner of her eyes.

"What happened with Clark? Lois, I need to understand what's happening." If Clark was involved with a missing Chloe, then it was much worse than he could have guessed. He led Lois toward the lounge in Watchtower. He needed answers but he needed Lois to calm down so they made sense. As she walked with him, the impending waterworks dried up, her emotions swinging from tears to rage. She followed him hurling accusations and random questions.

"And you, where were you? Huh? How could you let her go off like that? What were you thinking? Why did Chloe send me here? What more is she hiding. Is this all Clark's fault too? He lied to me! And dated me! He lied to me _while_ he dated me! Well, that's over one way or another," she grumbled and then switched topics. "Just what is this place anyway?"

Oliver didn't try to give her any answers yet. He knew Lois well enough to know she wasn't really in a listening state of mind. As they approached the couch, Dinah rose to give them privacy or maybe she was just trying to get away from Lane at her obnoxious best. She didn't escape fast enough. Lois gasped in recognition and stepped to her right to block Canary's exit. She held out her hand and wagged her finger.

"Why is Dinah Lance, the bad girl of conservative talk radio," she paused while her judgmental eye slid over Canary's tight leather outfit and fishnet stockings, "dressed like a circus tramp and relaxing next to a throw that Martha Kent knitted!" Lois demanded outraged.

Dinah rolled her eyes, "Oh, this is ridiculous," she said and tried to walk around them, only for Lois to block her path again.

Lois let loose. "I'll tell you what's ridiculous, it's you with the puffy hair and the crazy make up, and the slutty," Canary leaned over and whispered something in her ear, "stockings and the…," Lois fell silent. Oliver caught her before she fell to the floor.

He glared at Black Canary. "What did you do that for? I needed to know what's happened to Chloe!"

"Don't worry," Canary placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, "by now J'onn has had time to glean from her mind anything pertinent. I went easy on her. She should awake without so much as a headache."

From the other side of the room Courtney winced and rubbed at her temples. "Too bad she wasn't as thoughtful. I know she's just awfully worried, but could somebody tell me where Watchtower keeps the aspirin?"

"And could somebody tell me what's going on?" Oliver demanded testily as he laid Lois out on the couch. "Where's Chloe? Why were you trying to keep me from finding out?"

Carter Hall answered as he came down the steps. "As if we needed two people going into hysterics."

Oliver swung around. "I'd have kept my head. It's the Boy Scout that does the melt down when Sullivan gets into trouble. You shouldn't have kept this from me. I could have dealt with Lois."

Carter crossed his arms over his chest. "Yeah, you were doing such a fine job of dealing with her just now," he observed dryly.

Oliver took an aggressive step in his direction, but Dinah grabbed his wrist. "That's enough, both of you. She sent Carter an admonishing look before turning back to Oliver. "We think Chloe went to the ice fortress to try and revive Kent."

"Yes," J'onn nodded. "Her cousin's memories confirm that Chloe took Kal-El's body to the portal in the Kawatche caves and vanished. She went in the hopes that Jor-El could revive him."

Oliver felt his stomach drop. "His body?" He shook his head. "I thought they were all gone." He turned to Carter. "On the trip back you told me the Kandorian problem was over."

"The Kandorian problem is over. I saw them leave, Zod included, but not before he stabbed Clark." He frowned, remembering. "I got Kent to Watchtower alive, but his wounds were too grave. He died, bled out right in front of us. She tried, but we couldn't save him."

Oliver swore long and viciously. He had worried over Chloe, about how she'd handle it after Clark left with the Kandorians and she no longer had saving the world to distract her. He knew Clark leaving was going to hit her hard and hoped she would continue turning to him for comfort, but he had no clue how she'd carry on if Kent was dead. A blow like that would have Chloe locking away all her feelings. It's what she did to cope. Push everything away and get the job done. Oliver was afraid it would be years before she'd risk opening her heart again.

In the tunnels, when he'd been surrounded, he'd blurted out his feelings, afraid he'd never get another chance. Thinking there was no tomorrow, he had ignored the pause that preceded Chloe's reply, but now he couldn't stop thinking of it. Had she just given him what he wanted to hear? He feared he was moving too fast, pushing for what she wasn't ready to give him.

He wasn't blind. Scars or no scars, if Clark ever opened his eyes to what he had with Chloe, Oliver didn't fool himself on his chances in keeping what he'd found. Lucky for him, Clark in the past year had worked hard to stick his head as deep in the sand as possible. But that meant nothing if Chloe ended up freezing to death in a broken vestige of a dead civilization somewhere above the artic circle.

"Dammit, how could you have let her go?"

Carter's mouth flattened. "Maybe I shouldn't have left her alone, but dead usually means dead. I knew she was upset, I mean, she was…," he shook his head, unable to express her mental state, "she was lost, floundering. But you were still missing. Chloe had already sent Courtney out to search for you and we had a lead. I thought concentrating on someone she could save would help."

Courtney finished swallowing her pills and rejoined the group. "Right and I needed help with the translations so he left Watchtower to meet me at the earth station. How could anyone have known Chloe would do something so reckless as try to get Clark's body to the arctic?"

Oliver raked his hand through his hair and smirked sarcastically. "Right, 'cause when it comes to Clark Kent, Chloe Sullivan is so damm sensible and cautious." He tried to think logically. "Why would she have gone off on her own? Why didn't she wait and contact J'onn?" He looked at the detective. "Your trip to the sun pulled Clark through last time."

Dinah frowned. "Costing him all his own abilities."

Carter scowled, "So he should give up what Kent Nelson gave his life to restore? You think Dr. Fate's sacrifice meant so little?"

"No one is saying that." Courtney quickly assured him, looking alarmed.

J'onn spoke softly, first to Oliver. "If I understand the nature of Kal-El's injuries, it is perhaps best that no one waited for me. By the time I arrived back at Watchtower, the window of opportunity to help Clark would have closed." He then approached Carter Hall and placed his hands on the man's shoulders. "As for Dr. Fate, your friend's contributions to the world will never be forgotten."

"I'm sorry," Carter scrunched his eyes shut and rubbed at his forehead. "I don't know why I said that."

"You are feeling guilty, responsible for Chloe Sullivan's absence, but you could not have known what she would do. You are not at fault."

He scrubbed his face with his hands. "I don't know. Maybe I should have known. I was there. I saw how it was. She told me but I didn't understand. I'm the reason she's lost in the arctic. I should have stopped her."

A sudden gust blew in Bart Allen. "Yeah, right. There's not much that can stop the Chloester when she's made up her mind."

Oliver zeroed in on what his fast friend was saying. "Bart, you know about this?"

J'onn inclined his head. "Shortly after Ms. Lane arrived, I sent him to the caves to see if the portal remained open."

"And?" Oliver leaned forward expectantly, hoping Impulse brought some answers.

Bart shook his head. "No good. She must have taken the key thing along for the trip." He zipped upstairs to the pantry and grabbed something out of the fridge and then back to the group of heroes. "Best way to keep Chatty Cathy from following I suppose." Bart wandered over to the couch and glanced down at the unconscious Lois. "I guess that works too," he said before flopping down next to her and taking a huge bite out of his apple.

"There has to be a way to find her." Oliver turned to Victor. "She kept a dedicated satellite feed on the Fortress; that should be able to tell us the coordinates."

Cyborg shook his head. "If I had enough time, but the security protocols in place are unlike anything else in Watchtower, just layer after layer. This was one secret she wasn't risking exposure. I've got a program trying to detangle it, but it's going to take hours."

"Same thing goes for a grid search." Bart offered almost casually. "We can run a search, but it's going to take too long."

"So you're just suggesting we do nothing?" Oliver stared at him incredulously.

Bart shrugged, "Chloe usually knows what she's doing. If she thinks Jor-El can save Clark, she's probably right. Comp-u-Dad does his wohoo and Chloelicious takes the Clark express home. No big."

"Are you out of your mind? Do you really think Chloe is thinking straight? After Zod's redecorating, we don't even know if Jor-El is even still in the Fortress. She might be up there in nothing more than a giant ice tomb. Even if it is still active, there's no knowing if Jor-El will listen to her, put her in the deep freeze, or swap out their life forces."

"I know." Bart dropped his unconcerned act. "But what's more, Chloe would know all of this and you know what? She'd still go. I know it and I only popped in and out of the picture a couple dozen times." He shook his head and scoffed. "Boss man, you've spent way more time around Kent and Sullivan than me, and no matter how weird their vibe was this year, you can't tell me Chloe risking everything for Clark is a surprise."

Oliver went still. Bart was hitting a little too close to the truth.

"I'm not saying I'm not worried, I am, but I'm saying this was her choice. One she would always make no matter the circumstances." He took a final bite of his apple, blurred over to the garbage and returned to the couch. "We might as well trust Chloe's judgment and hope for the best."

J'onn nodded solemnly. "He is right. In reality there is little that we can do to affect the outcome. We keep trying all avenues, we continue searching, but at this point, all we can really do is wait."

Oliver felt panic tighten his gut. He couldn't compete with the kind of bone deep devotion Chloe offered to Clark. How could Clark not wake up to what he had? He hoped with everything in him that Chloe's gamble paid off, but an aching hunch told him no matter how this turned out, he was going to lose. She might be coming back, but he felt it deep down, she wasn't coming back his.


	5. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

White on white on white.

Usually a few shadows gave depth and contour to the frozen fortress but now the intense light saturated the space, bouncing off all surfaces, and masking the damage Zod had inflicted.

The light danced over Chloe too, but for her the light did not conceal anything. She sat as if in a spotlight, no place to hide, no reason to run. Deep from the hidden places in her soul, her truths emerged about her loves and her dreams. They basked in the brightness, gaining strength and boldness and becoming impossible to conceal again. Did the light bring the truth or was it merely an eyewitness to what she needed to reveal?

The Fortress hadn't always been a place of truth. Jor-El used this temple of learning to instruct Clark, but the lessons given came with secrets and manipulation.

_Rule them with Strength._

Chloe couldn't imagine what Clark's life would have been like had he taken the path Jor-El's AI originally planned for him.

Over the years, the paternal computer made extreme demands, often with horrendous results, but she realized now it kept trying to adapt, trying to find the right programming to fulfill its purpose. Had Clark survived and stayed on earth, his fortress would have grown from a prison to a haven. Now it would become his final tomb.

Chloe liked to imagine that along with the boundless knowledge of a lost civilization, her final truths might also be enshrined into the future.

"_I love you Clark," she whispered against his temple. "Not only as my best friend, not as just a kind of extended family, but with every scrap of my affection, frustration, and passion - every bit of my being. I've loved you from the beginning and I know now, some things never end. Maybe you were never really mine, but you were always mine to love."_

_She sniffed. "The last time I told you my feelings you were unconscious. Boy, did I do one better this time." Her voice broke into a sob. "What I wouldn't give now to hear you say Lana's name."_

_"Chloe."_

She smiled through her tears. Her delusions were beginning to feel incredibly real and her final fantasies were kind ones. She loved the resonant sound of Clark's voice. He pronounced her name as if it was a fantastic discovery, said with affection, and brimming with gladness. She kept her eyes closed, reveling in a moment of make believe. She kissed his forehead and rubbed her cheek against his. She could almost feel his breath brushing over her lips. She slid her fingers into his silky hair and, unwilling to resist the urge, pressed her lips to his one final time.

They remained soft and supple and to her delight, her delusion deepened and Clark seemed to respond with a light pressure and then a deepening answer. The hand she had held turned and laced their fingers together –against all odds, them taking on the world. She imagined his other hand lifted and gently cupped the back of her neck, angling her head so he could have greater access. His mouth slanted against hers, taking the kiss to another place, a place she dreamed about late at night. Heat curled out from her stomach. The kiss matched and then exceeded the one she remembered in the Planet's basement. She held nothing back, riding the wave of sensation. Something tickled the back of her consciousness.

Her imagination wasn't this good.

She froze. This was no fantasy. She could hear him breathing, feel the heat coming off his body. Her eyes fluttered open. A pair of piercing blue-green eyes returned her gaze. Her heart pounded erratically and her vision swam. "Clark?" She feebly questioned, hardly daring to believe.

Clark stared back at Chloe, catching his breath from the intensity of their kiss. He'd been awakening slowly over time, drenched the in warm rays from the yellow sun that knitted his body back together while his emotions swam through a sea of murmured words of friendship and love. The words flowed over him, filling the emptiness he'd been desperate to ignore.

As he'd struggled to awake, his sluggish mind hadn't been able to give a name to the owner of the voice. It belonged to a woman – he knew it by the lilting tone of her caring words, by the softness of his pillow and by the comfort of her gentle touches. Just hearing her made him happy. The voice made him think of home and acceptance and at the same time filled him certainty about the future. He knew the luring call didn't come from his mother. The brush of her hand stirred his senses and brought with it an aching longing.

Affection and yearning for the voice built in him as he tried to break free of unconsciousness. The answer was so easy, but just beyond his reach. He felt impatient. He'd been without her for too long.

He listened as she spoke. Why would he let her go? She provided the answer. Ah, Jor-El. Of course, that only made sense. No one in complete control of his or her mind would willingly walk away from this feeling.

What was her name? A name was magic, a summons to a soul. Maybe he was dreaming. Didn't matter. He didn't want to wake up without an answer.

The dream voice turned to talk of love again and his mind filtered through his past. Not Lana, their love never brought comfort, never made him feel strong, and; he had decided; was never meant to last.

He spared a momentary thought to his brief time with Kyla and Alicia but let them slide past without comparison. The connection he felt was too vital for those fleeting associations. The voice should belong to Lois, he loved…wait, that wasn't right. Why would he think that?

Who uttered the seductive, soft tones pulling him to consciousness? The answer came to him suddenly. It was so simple. Joy curled around his heart. Of course, there could be no other.

Clark had opened his eyes to see her beautifully familiar face hovering a breath away. Her golden hair was a glowing nimbus, backlit by the healing sun. She was his guardian angel when it should be the other way around. He sighed her name with pleasure and wonder.

She was breathtaking. She was his constant, his greatest need. She wasn't perfect; she kept pushing him away, but now she was here, smiling dreamily and pressing her soft lips to his forehead.

He wanted more. Her silky cheek brushed against his and he felt his breath quicken. Her fingers slid across his scalp into his hair, leaving behind a wake of tingles and then finally, the lips he craved pressed against his. Even her gentle touch roused something powerful and heated, prompting Clark to take control of the kiss. She matched his urgency. Desire bolted through him at her open response. Then she suddenly froze and pulled back. She opened her eyes and it was her turn to whisper his name.

He let go of her and slowly sat up, never breaking eye contact. Something fell from his shoulders - a cape perhaps - uncovering his torn shirt. As he moved, the gaping tears in the form fitting black tee showed off nothing but smooth golden skin. Clark suddenly remembered his fight with Zod ant the fiery agony of the dagger plunged in his abdomen. His wounds were gone but Chloe's eyes dropped to stare at where they had been.

Wrinkling her brow and pursing her lips, Chloe tentatively placed her hand over his heart, her fingers slipping inside his shirt at the long horizontal rip across his chest. She rested her palm, letting it warm against his skin. Her light, cool touch made his heart pound and she snatched back her trembling hand. Her whole body shook and her breath hitched in short, unnatural, little gasps.

Clark lifted his hand and brushed back a few strands of hair from her face, needing a reason to touch her. She closed her eyes and leaned into his caress. He whispered, "Hey," and smiled. His best friend and greatest ally opened her eyes once more and this time he saw belief and understanding expand in her green eyes - right before they unfocused, rolled back into her head, and she slumped forward.

Clark instantly shed the last of his waking haze. The warm lethargy vanished as he scooped Chloe up in his arms, his heart thudding in fear. He realized for the first time he was at the fortress and he couldn't remember getting there. That never boded well.

The last thing he remembered was the fight on the roof. He took the blue kryptonite knife away from Zod so Krypton's destroyer would never again threaten Earth. The vortex created by the Book of Rao pulled Zod into the new home dimension for Kandorians. He would not escape retribution.

Then Clark recalled a rush of wind as he fell, followed by the pain and the jolt of not crashing to the ground. Something caught him. No, someone caught him. The rest of his memories until waking in Chloe's embrace were a jumble of hurt and fear. Not his fear, the pain took all his attention. Someone kept calling his name, begging him to keep fighting, not to leave her. He looked down at the crumpled figure cradled against his chest and knew he was remembering her fear. Now he felt his own.

He raised his voice and urgently called for his father. "Jor-El! Answer me! Jor-El!"

"_It is good to have you back my son_."

"What did you do to Chloe?" He accused, his jaw working back and forth, trying to contain his terror. "I was dead, wasn't I? I was dead and she brought me here." Belatedly, Clark used his x-ray vision to scan the area and confirmed they were alone. His heart stuttered. Until he moved the new crystal interface to the fortress, Chloe couldn't use the portal to return home so how had she planned to get home?

Had her plans included going home?

His stomach knotted. "Answer me! Tell me she didn't…please, no, tell me she didn't offer a trade," he begged Jor-El for an answer while at the same time he was terrified of the one he would receive. He knew Chloe's generous heart too well.

"_Indeed, she did offer her life up in exchange_."

Clark held her tighter, "NO!" He shouted backing away. "Not Chloe. Not Chloe! You can't have her. Give her back to me," he pleaded. "I need her." An agony, more deadly than kryptonite, clutched at his heart.

"_Be at peace my son, she is untouched_."

He staggered back in relief. "What? You said she offered..."

_"The offer has value on its own merits, but as I told the fierce one, there was nothing for me to do to save you. The arriving dawn coming through the fortress walls healed you with no interference on my part.__"_

Somehow, Clark doubted Jor-El had been as clear with Chloe as he was now. Clark had read Chloe's face before she passed out. She'd seen a ghost.

"If you did nothing to her, why did she collapse?" Clark could tell she was cold but not on the edge of severe hypothermia as she'd been on her very first visit to the fortress. He looked around and saw a red blanket, one he recognized as a Queen Industries experimental polymer. In addition to being unusually tough, it also was an effective insulator.

_"Her exhaustion is easy to sense."_

As Clark laid Chloe on the red blanket, wrapping it around her and using his heat vision to warm it like an electric blanket, memories crashed through his mind. Chloe trapped in Watchtower and then rushing to Met General to kill and save Tess in one-step. Chloe's return to the tower and working all day and night to restore Watchtower to full function. Chloe confessing her fear the job would keep consuming her life until there was nothing left. He urging her to keep going, knowing she would never refuse him when he told her he needed her.

Had Chloe even left Watchtower since Checkmate hacked her system? His memory jumped to when he had brought the Book of Rao to show Chloe. He'd glimpsed her trashcan overflowing with used filters, coffee grounds, and take out boxes. Water bottles and soda cans filled the adjacent recycling bin. Knowing Chloe, the only rest she'd taken was the kind that snuck up and knocked her out over the keyboard.

How could he have let her push herself that hard? More memories of the recent year began crowding his mind, feelings and thoughts that were familiar, yet foreign. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

He stood and turned back to his father. "Something's not right. Jor-El, my mind, it's not my own. I could never...," he sucked in his breath, his mind forcing him back to the day he stood over Jimmy's dried blood and turned his back on everything he'd fought to come home to. How could that be right? That wasn't what he planned. He was going to tell her and then he was never going to let her out of his sight again.

Chloe vanished with Davis and Clark finally understood how deeply his feelings ran. Every minute she was missing, he felt his control slipping and his concentration fracturing. Every hour passing felt empty and wrong.

He vowed to find her, bring her home and set her straight about saving him. She did it every day by being in his life. He was finished with noble sentiments about leaving her to lead a normal life away from the dangers that stalked him. He was through giving her time to get over her divorce to a man that needed her to be weak before he could be strong. Clark knew then he was done with backing away and being patient. Giving Chloe space did nothing but leave her vulnerable and alone.

Clark vowed he would find her, no matter what it took. He needed her. She was a part of him. How then could he have walked away from all he was feeling? The question sparked a memory. The voice, Chloe's voice, had answered that question. Jor-El had done something.

Clark went rigid. "What did she mean? Jor-El!" His shout shook the fortress walls. "What did you do to me?" There was a heavy pause before he received a cryptic reply.

"_Dwell not on what is no longer. Take the answers and seek the question. My actions will not repeat_."

Jor-El's assurance did not reassure, instead, confirmation of his betray punched Clark in the gut. "That's not good enough! How could you take so much from me?" He demanded. He remembered the destruction dealt to the earth before they'd changed the timeline. A timeline where he'd completely turned his back on Chloe and everything else that mattered to him. Jor-El's interference came close to condemning the world. "Do you have any clue as to what you did? You messed with more than just my life."

Unfortunately, like all too often, Jor-El was not forthcoming about his actions. Suddenly the AI changed tone.

"_Be well my son; she awakes_."

As a distraction, it was a good one. While Clark focused on Chloe stirring in her warm cocoon, Jor-El's presence slinked away. Clark crouched next to her, brushing back her hair so he could see her face.

Groggy, Chloe blinked against the bright light. Scrunching her eyes shut she turned away and muttered, "Too bright."

The light was coming from all around so in order to block it, Clark knelt and shifted so he was hovering over her, straddling her body to do so. With the painful glare blocked, she blinked a few times, refusing at first to do anything but look straight ahead at his chest. Tentatively, she reached out, crumpled a handful of his torn t-shirt in her fist and only then, raised her eyes to his. He tenderly smoothed his hand through her hair again and her hesitancy vanished. She leaned forward and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him tightly. He enfolded her in his arms, the feeling natural and right.

A shudder went through Chloe. "I didn't think I'd ever get to hold you again," she whispered, clinging to him as if she was never going to let him go. He held on tighter trying to ensure it. He shut his eyes against a stinging sensation.

More flashes of the past year went through his mind. The absurd mixed with the shocking. Talking to Lois as the Blur; ignoring Chloe's phone calls. Telling Lois she was the most trustworthy person he knew; using Chloe for answers but shutting her out of his life. Thinking Lois was THE one because of how he felt to have someone throw their arms around him when he returned; shoving Chloe to the floor for creating the same weapons stashes he'd seen save the future – and knowing a part of him wanted to do it RedK or no RedK.

He wouldn't have blamed Chloe if she never wanted to seem him again, but all through the last year she left the door open to their friendship and in the previous weeks, he'd found himself crawling through it to apologize and try to win back what he'd lost even as he irrationally continued to keep her at a distance. It was a miracle she was here in his arms now. The strength of her heart put all of his abilities to shame.

"I'm sorry Chloe, I'm so sorry," he told her sliding the silky cool strands of her hair between his fingers. "This last year, I treated you so wrong. I needed you, kept feeling myself drawn back to you and at the same time it was as if I was trying to punish you for making me feel that way. I hurt you over and over."

"Shh, I don't want to talk about that." If possible, she tightened her hold, "Please, I just need a little more time."

"More time for what?"

"For this. Just don't let go yet. Please, not yet, I can't…"

Her voice cracked and Clark felt her tears dampen his neck. He didn't entirely understand the urgency of her plea, but he couldn't stand to hear her pain. "It's ok, I'm not going anywhere," he murmured against her hair and stroked her back."

Chloe's heart pounded. Her hands trembled. She clung to him, one point of clarity in the swirling chaos of her heart and mind. Clark was alive! He was here, safe from Zod, warm and strong, his heartbeat steady under her ear and for the moment, nothing else in the world mattered.

And yet, she knew it wouldn't be enough. She'd been in this moment before, a taste of her dreams before wrenching reality. There was one big difference this time. Thinking this was the end, she'd broken her rules and dropped any safeguards on her heart.

How was she supposed to go back to the way things were? How would she survive the agony of Clark's inevitably gentle but non the less firm rejection?

She had no answers, no way of turning back and knowing how this would end didn't change how she felt or what she needed. Perhaps knowing she was going to lose it all made her feel everything with sharper intensity. Holding Clark, feeling his arms around her wasn't enough. She needed more and needed to give more. When he sent her away this time, she couldn't come back, but she refused to leave with more regrets.

Chloe's hold on Clark subtly changed. Her hands stopped their panicked clinging and shifted to a firm glide over his neck and shoulders. He felt so good in her arms, his body melding to hers. Her palms molded against his muscles and tendons, testing the warm resiliency of his skin. Perhaps without Clark consciously thinking about it, his hands mirrored her actions. They skimmed up and down her spine leaving a shivery trail.

She looped her arms around his neck, her fingers toying with the dark curls at the nape of his neck, and tilted her head back to look at the handsome boy who became the stunning man. His hot gaze locked with hers and Chloe felt her breath catch in the back of her throat. A wave of heat washed over her.

Clark moved forward, forcing her to lean back until she rested again on the blanket shielding her from the snowy floor. He followed her down, his lips finding hers and her body melting beneath his as she let go of a lost tomorrow and concentrated on taking the most from today.

She lifted her head and began to press her lips against his throat, feeling his life force thrumming at his pulse point. She lightly nibbled underneath his jaw and felt a shudder go through him. She thrilled to feel Clark affected by her touch.

She loved the feel of his weight against her, the solid planes of his chest, and the strength of his corded thigh coming to rest between her parted knees. He could have crushed her, but he moderated his strength and she shivered at the power he kept firmly in check. She let a wave of giddy happiness rush through her and then snickered in her head at the word let, as if she was in any kind of control, but then she didn't want to be. Maybe for the moment, Clark didn't want to be either because the rejection she was poised to receive hadn't come. A lick of hope blossomed. Maybe she was wrong, maybe he…she shut down her train of thought and concentrated on the moment.

Clark's hand slid down her side and even through the concealing work coat, she felt the heat of his touch. How much better it would feel with out the bulky barrier. She leaned forward a bit, unzipped and started to shrug out of Martha Kent's borrowed jacket. Clark obligingly eased it back down her shoulders, stealing kisses while he opened it up. Chloe almost didn't notice when he froze in place.

As Clark pushed apart the jacket's lapels, the dark stiff stains saturating the front of Chloe's shirt burned through Clark's rushing desire. Chloe didn't notice and continued working to pull her arms out of the long sleeves. Clark's stomach clenched as she freed her arms, revealing rust colored blemishes dried in thick smears on her pale skin all the way from her wrists to where her short cap sleeves covered her shoulders. The full weight of the trauma she'd gone through slammed into him and he firmly pushed her away. His mother raised him to be a gentleman. He refused to rush things and take advantage of her vulnerable emotional state before he'd had a chance to explain about the last year. Plus as his brain began to reengage, it occurred to him he didn't want their first time together to be rolling around under the watchful eye of Jor-El.

"Chloe no, stop. We shouldn't…I can't…" he protested while pointedly looking away from her appealingly flushed face and swollen lips. He clenched his jaw, trying to get control of his passions. He wasn't a brute; he could control himself no matter how tempting Chloe felt in his arms. A moment passed with Chloe staring at him uncomprehending and then out of the corner of his eyes Clark uneasily watched a shutter drop down over the open soul that had been shining in her eyes. A thread of apprehension surged through him. Why did he feel like he'd just made a big mistake?

He sat up. "I should get you back," he suggested, not knowing how to fill the sudden awkward silence. "After you've rested and had a chance to clean up we can talk." And by talk, he meant a quick explanation, time for Chloe to call and break up with Oliver, followed by picking up where they left off. Being a gentleman had its limits.

"Talk?" Chloe blinked at him in confusion. She didn't need words to spell out what she'd known was inevitable. For a few minutes, she'd thought maybe she'd been wrong, maybe he did want her, maybe he wasn't going to reject her again.

Sometimes she really hated being right. She figured once the thrill of beating Zod and cheating death wore off Clark came to his senses. When it happened, he couldn't bear to even look at her. Was he disgusted by what he'd almost let happened? Perhaps she was being too harsh but her insides felt like broken glass. This was the end. She shook her head and forced herself to answer unemotionally. "No. There's nothing to talk about."

Clark felt a spurt of annoyance. Was Chloe was going to try to pretend nothing had happened between them? Then Clark thought of how he'd acted for the past year. This wasn't like the past. She had plenty of good reasons to be mad. Maybe waiting to explain wasn't a good idea. "Chloe, this last year, I need to explain."

"Really, there's no need." She pushed to her feet, slid her arms back in the jacket she just removed and hoped Clark would let the subject drop. Couldn't he understand every added explanation just drew out the pain?

"Chloe, there a lot I need to say."

She zipped up the jacket and lost her measured tone. "You're not listening to me," she snapped.

He frowned. She wasn't giving him a chance to explain. "Look, I know you are tired." He reached for her. "After you rest…"

"No, just, no." She pushed away his hands, his touch painful now. "Clark, I can't do this anymore."

She squeezed her eyes shut, wrapped her arms around her middle, and took a deep shuddering breath. "I can't pretend everything is alright. I can't even go back to knowing everything is all wrong but holding on anyway because…because," she searched for an answer, opening her eyes and letting a pair of tears fall down her cheeks, "because you were my best friend and I never wanted that to change," she wiped the wetness away, " but things have changed. I can't be your friend anymore."

Clark flinched and he shook his head in confusion. "I don't understand." He took a step forward but Chloe moved a pace back, the words spilling out painfully.

"I can't be your sidekick. Or the league's database." She slashed a hand through the air to punctuate each sentence. "I can't be your shoulder to cry on. I can't be some quasi stand in family. I can't…can't be," she looked up and away as more tears spilled over wetting her cheeks, "the one that believes in you and what you can accomplish in this world."

She shook her head. "Not any more. I can't be any of that. I can only be what I've always been underneath all of the other disguises but," she bit her lip trying to hold back her emotions, "that's too much for you. And I wish," her face contorted with grief, "oh god I wish I could stuff it all back inside and go on where we left off, but I can't Clark. I can't." Determination firmed up her trembling jaw. "I won't."

Chloe had spent all of what qualified as her adult life trying to remake her heart into something…less. She tried to make it safe, controlled and in the process, ruthlessly cut away the very things that fed her soul and defined who she was. Even if it meant starting over with nothing, she was finished living life in half measures.

"What are you saying?"

What was she saying? She bit her lip. "I think I'm saying goodbye."

A chill that had nothing to do with the arctic made Clark shiver. He shook his head. "You don't mean that."

"It's the only thing I can do." She nodded, understanding sinking in more as she spoke. Chloe felt a kind of numb calmness invade.

Clark felt his chest tighten. Chloe was slipping through his fingers and he didn't how to stop it from happening. He was missing something. There was something vaguely familiar about what she'd said. _'I can only be what I've always been underneath all the disguises.'_ No matter what disguise she wore, underneath it she was still his Chloe. He refused to believe she wanted to walk from away him. He just had to make it right. "Please, you have to give me a chance to explain about this last year. Jor-El..."

"I know Clark," she told him gently. "He told me."

"That's right, he spoke to you."

She nodded. "And Jor-El admitted he is the one who tried to make you walk away from your humanity." She dropped her eyes and looked away from the hopeful expression in Clark's eyes. "But it doesn't matter. That's not what this is about." That was partially a lie. How long would she have stayed if she'd had any hope for something to change between them? Jor-El's interference though, proved to her some things don't change.

Clark straightened up. She knew about Jor-El, but of course that wasn't enough. He thought of the countless cold ways he'd treated her in the past year. "You're right. I shouldn't make excuses, no matter what Jor-El did to me, I still am the one that took it out on you, but I can make it up to you."

"Clark, I'm not blaming you. This is me, all me." That was almost true. If she hadn't been alone in her feelings she wouldn't have to make this choice, but she loved Clark and no longer could she stand anything less in return. "For so long I had everything under control and contained but you're like a…a cancer that only gets bigger, more consuming. The only thing I can do it cut you out and hope I can heal." She turned to walk away, even if it was only a figurative step since she couldn't leave the fortress without him.

Clark didn't like even the symbolic gesture and zipped in front of her. "No, I'm not letting this happen, not now, not when I'm finally have a chance to make my life what I want."

"Some things are out of our control." She turned away from him again, sinking deeper into the numbness, but he followed her and grabbed her arm.

"Not this. No." He held firmly but gently on to her upper arms. "This isn't out of our control, I don't really know what's happening right now but you're wrong about me not listening to you. I heard you," he stressed urgently. She looked at him in confusion. "When I was waking up," he explained, "I heard you." His gaze bored into hers. "You said you loved me."

Chloe blinked and some of the blanketing numbness pulled back. "You heard that?"

"Yes." He leaned forward. "You love me and you can't pull the friends card. You said you loved me all the way. With everything."

She froze. Why was he doing this? Didn't he understand that loving him that way was the reason why she couldn't stand to stay around and not have him love her the same in return?

"Was it all just a lie?" He whispered, a vulnerable trace emerging of the shy youth to whom she'd given her first kiss.

Her eyes went wide. "No! Of course not."

"Then why?" He cupped her face. "Why won't you give me a chance to make it up to you? Why are you trying to leave me?"

"I told you," she whispered brokenly while her eyes overflowed. "I can't do this anymore."

"You can't love me anymore?" He asked while using his thumb to stroke her tear stained cheek.

She half laughed, half sobbed, "No, you stupid boy, I can't stop loving you and it will destroy me to be around you when all you ever want is your friend. Let me go, please," she begged him so softly he needed his enhanced hearing to hear her plea.

He ignored her demand. The crushing weight around his heart loosened. "Wait, you're threatening to leave because you do love me?" A big silly grin broke out on his face. He pulled her in for a tight hug. "Chloe you scared me to death. Don't ever do that again. We don't have a problem." He pulled back so he could look her in the eyes. "I love you too."

Her heart ached and she had to look away. She should have guessed after all the trauma of the night he might go to extremes to try to get her to stay. She understood that he loved her as a friend but she had more in common with Lois than he might know. She didn't have a problem sharing Clark with the world but she couldn't handle coming in second in his heart. She wasn't worried about Lana or even Lois specifically, just that she'd always know she wasn't what he really wanted.

"No Clark, you don't," she insisted, "not the way I need you to love me." She had to be strong.

"Yes I do. There isn't any way that I don't love you," he told her earnestly while running his hands up and down her back. "I think Jor-El took my feelings for you and redirected them at Lois."

Clark reviewed his memories of the past year with Lois and based on his emerging theory, they now made sense. The trust, the deep-seated certainty that they would always be together, how easy it felt to talk to her, his early urges to ask for her help with research, the feeling he got from the send off kiss, knowing she was the one from the way he felt when she ran to greet him. Clark saw what had happened with complete clarity. Everything he felt with Chloe Jor-El recreated with Lois, his real feelings coloring an illusion.

She looked at him sadly. "I told you, I know all this."

He tipped his head forward. "Then you know that I telling you the truth."

She shook her head weakly. "No, Jor-El's interference made it clear to me that my friendship was all you could ever want from me." Chloe knew she was never going to be classically beautiful in the same way as Lois or Lana and any other time in her life she was fine with that, confident of her own worth. But right now, a part of her was shriveling up inside as she had to face the reason Clark had never fallen for her had nothing to do with the depth of his affection.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Think about it. Jor-El redirected the connection we shared to Lois and you fell instantly in love." It had happened too quickly for Clark to have fallen in love based on who Lois was inside, which meant the difference could only lay with something Chloe could never change: outward appearance.

She shrugged clumsily. "You told me a long time ago that you just didn't think of me that way. I guess what you meant it you don't see me that way, but you didn't have that problem with Lois." After loving Clark for half her life and deep down clinging to the hope that one day he would figure out he felt the same way, she knew now nothing would change. Not unless she could turn into a tall, buxom brunette and she had too much self respect to bash her head against the impossible any longer. Ok, the brunette part she had covered, and Victoria Secret had some gravity defying devices that could assist in the other area, but part of her despised Clark for his shallowness.

"I didn't suddenly fall for Lois; I'd already fallen for you." He clutched at her hand.

Her heart squeezed. She wanted to reach out and smooth the deep creases in his forehead and tell him everything was going to be all right. He looked so sincere. She wanted desperately to believe him, but some facts were unchangeable. He'd let her marry Jimmy. He hosted her wedding. What was she supposed to believe? He couldn't have been already in love with her. "Please, don't make this harder than it is."

"You don't believe me?" He asked with a touch of petulant surprise.

"I don't know how I can."

Clark racked his mind for proof, for some reason for Chloe to believe he loved her before Jor-El pushed him toward Lois and came up with only one thing. He went still. Telling her that might be the one thing that insured he lost her forever.

"Well I did…do. I love you." He told her clumsily. Maybe if he just kept saying it she would recognize the truth. "I knew it the day Davis stole you away. Deep down I think I knew it the day you kissed me at the Planet except when I got back you confused me by choosing Jimmy instead, but you can't confuse me this time because I already know you love me. And you can't stop." He tilted his head. "I'm like cancer, remember," he mocked gently.

Chloe flushed at the reminder of her less than flattering comparison.

"You love me and I love you, so we don't have a problem, so no more talk of saying goodbye, ok, never again, ok?" He could hear the strain in his own voice and despite his insistence, Clark could see in Chloe's eyes that he wasn't convincing her. He swallowed hard. "You still don't believe me."

She slowly shook her head and shrugged weakly. "You walked me down the aisle and gave me to another man without so much as a murmur of protest. I can't see that as something a man in love would do."

He grasped her hand between his palms again and shook his head. "It's what I thought you wanted. You deserved a chance at a normal happy life. What I wanted didn't matter. You have to believe me." He was feeling desperate. This couldn't be happening, not now.

"I can't. If I let myself believe and then…it's too much." Chloe's voice broke. She pulled her hand free from his hold and turned away. A moment of silence stretched out and then she whispered over her shoulder. "I'll never forget you."

"Don't say that, this can't be goodbye." He clenched his fists at his sides. She was pulling away from him emotionally. His chance to make her believe was slipping away fast. He had to tell her. It was the only choice left. He had to tell her and hope that she loved him enough to forgive him for the unforgivable. "Yes I walked you down the aisle but first I had Jor-El do something so I could stand it."

Chloe's shoulders stiffened and she slowly turned around to face him, narrowing her eyes suspiciously. "You expect me to believe you asked Jor-El to play with you mind?" She stared at him incredulously.

"No, not my mind." He swallowed hard and dropped his gaze to the side, unable to look her in the eyes. "Yours."


	6. Chapter 6

**Part 6**

Chloe froze.

Clark rushed to get out his confession. "When Brainiac started erasing your memories, I brought you to the fortress and Jor-El was able to reverse the process, only… I also had him remove any trace of my secret and hero work from your mind."

"No," she denied, air rushing out of her lungs. "That can't be true. I remember, I remember everything. You would never do that to me."

His temples started to throb. He was going to lose her. He deserved to lose her.

Clark wearily finished his guilty admission. "When Brainiac was removed, your memory came back." Chloe gasped and he bowed his head in shame. "I thought taking that knowledge was the only way for you to be safe." He glanced up briefly to see Chloe still shaking her head in denial. His shoulders slumped further down and he had to look away again. "I told myself it was a gift to take away the burden of my secret."

"A gift?" She repeated skeptically, sounding stunned.

How could he explain? "Knowing about me is dangerous. You take so many chances and my secret was coming between you and Jimmy and I knew in order for you to have a chance at normal, I was going to have to back out of the picture."

"So you gutted my mind and left me blind to the dangers still all around me?" Clark flinched at her acid tone. He forced his gaze to meet hers.

Chloe looked at him in horror. "You might as well have killed me. The person I am is inseparable from what I've experienced. I would never trade knowing I've made an impact on the world for anything."

Her words twisted in his gut as painfully as Zod's dagger. On the very day he had Jor-El take her memories, she'd told him close to the same thing. "I told myself if you didn't know my secret then you would be safe and have what you wanted in Jimmy."

"Wanted Jimmy?" She scowled. "Clark, I had Brainiac in my head, I don't know what I really wanted." She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. "You had no right." Her voice quavered even as she seethed in anger. She was breathing hard and clenching her fists until her knuckles turned white.

"No. I didn't." He softly agreed. "But I did it anyway," he admitted dejectedly, refusing to keep any more secrets. Misery and confusion flashed over Chloe's face mixing with her temper.

Clark kept his eyes glued on her face. Their future depended on what he did and said in the next few minutes. "I swear I'd never do anything like that again and I didn't go a day without regretting it. I told myself I did it for you, but," he swallowed nervously, "and I thought about this a lot while you were missing with Davis, the thing is, I really did it for me." Chloe eyed him warily and waited for him to finish. "I didn't know how to let you go."

"Let me go? I came to you. I practically begged you to give me a reason not to marry Jimmy and you never said anything."

"I was too late. I couldn't compete with the normal life he could give you." Chloe closed her eyes and looked away. Clark wiped his uncharacteristically sweaty palms on his pants.

"When I found that old letter of yours, I knew then I'd really lost out." He exhaled heavily. "I tried concentrating on being the Blur, but I couldn't stop thinking about what I couldn't have, what I'd been too blind to grab a hold of when I had the chance."

Chloe threw her hands up in the air and started pacing. "So you had Jor-El give me a lobotomy?"

Clark flushed. "I wasn't thinking. I thought letting go would hurt less if you didn't know me as well as you did."

Chloe stopped pacing. Looking straight ahead she asked, "Did it?"

"No. It was worse because even though you were still there, I made the real you disappear." Clark touched his chest, remembering the hollow ache he'd carried around after he realized what he'd done. He'd thought he'd understood what he was sacrificing, but how could he have?

In the years since Chloe had found out his secret, he'd taken for granted her easy acceptance and ready understanding. She never feared his powers or viewed them as alien. She just accepted his abilities as normal for him. His parents accepted him too, but their constant worry abut someone discovering his abilities meant that until he'd seen himself through Chloe's eyes, he'd never thought to think what normal for him really meant. During the weeks without Chloe having her memory, Clark went back to feeling alien and alone. That feeling returned and stayed with him all this last year, ending only when he woke up in her arms.

If he didn't convince Chloe to give him another chance, he might not ever feel whole again. "I tried to convince myself despite what I'd lost, you at least would be happy, then it turned out Brainiac was still in your mind and when he was removed you were you again, but you were still married to Jimmy and after what I had done…I didn't deserve you."

"Oh, but now I'm supposed to accept rewriting my brain as proof that you loved me?" Chloe bit her trembling lower lip. "How am I supposed to forgive you for this?"

His heart skipped a beat. She was trying to find a way to forgive him. He took a step in her direction and when she didn't back away, he took another. "I don't know. You've already put up with more than I have any right to ask of you, but I'm hoping maybe you can understand how hurting can lead to doing things you regret."

Chloe's chin went up. "I was fifteen years old. What's your excuse?"

He held his hands up. "I don't have one."

"Then why? Why would you do that to me?"

He shook his head. "I tried to tell myself I was doing something good, even being noble in giving you up, but I was lying to myself."

"I don't understand."

"I knew that when you got married the way we were friends would have to stop. The telephone calls, the movie nights, just getting the chance to see you every day. Things had already started to change but when it came to my secret, nothing had changed."

"I still don't understand."

"Chloe, what I did was one of the most stupidly selfish things I've ever done, ranking up there with my summer on RedK and what I did to my father. I was supposed to let you go." He raked his hand through his hair. "I wasn't strong enough to do it on my own and thought it would be easier if I no longer had a choice. I felt like I was going to lose you anyway, at least this way you'd be safe and I thought all the confusion would go away, but just the opposite happened."

Emotion swelled in her eyes and for a moment he thought he'd gotten through to her. Instead she insisted stubbornly, "That doesn't mean that you loved me; at least not as anything more than a friend."

He ground his teeth together. "We passed the just a friend stage a long time ago and I wanted more; I still do." He took a step closer.

Something like panic flashed in her eyes. "I'm not the same person I used to be. The girl you say you love might not even exist anymore."

Clark shook his head. "That's not true. I didn't fall in love with some ideal. I fell for the real you, with all your flaws mixed in." Chloe backed away and started pacing again. A stubborn glint winked in her eyes.

"How am I supposed to believe that when you won't even bother to remember what kind of sandwich I like. You once brought ham and Swiss on rye three times in the same week even after I kept telling you I didn't like the combo. How can I believe you really see me when you couldn't even keep that straight?" She challenged with her hand on her hip.

"As if remembering would have mattered. Chloe you stopped eating a real lunch about three months after starting at the Planet. You pick at whatever you have in front of you then use the calories you save to splurge on Thai or Chinese take out in the evening."

"That's not the point."

"I think it is." He grabbed her hand and forced her to stop pacing. "I know you, the you sometime even you try to hide from."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" She snatched her hand out of his and frowned.

He hesitated and then blurted out. "I mean Watchtower."

"I am good at what I do," she hissed, rising up on her tip toes. "Don't you dare say otherwise."

He shook his head. "I'm not. You are good, sometime so good it's scary but it's not what you were meant to do." He cocked his head. "Why'd you stop? It wasn't just about Lex. Why'd you give up on your dreams?"

"Dreams change."

"Yours haven't," Clark insisted. "No matter how much we needed you to form Watchtower and pull the team back together, you can't tell me that life is making you happy." He put his hand on her shoulder. "You deserve to be happy."

She stiffened beneath his touch. "Watch it," she warned and stared pointedly at his hand. "After swiping my memories, I don't think you should be deciding what makes me happy."

Clark moved his hand and then ran it back through his hair, making some strands stick up in all directions. "I'm not trying to force you to do anything, that's what was different about before. I wanted to you be happy and tried to force it to work even though a part of me knew you shouldn't be with Jimmy." At her narrowed eyes, he nodded his head. "You're right, I never said anything, but I'm not making that mistake again."

She threw her hands up in the air and whirled around to walk away. "What do you want from me?"

He zipped in front of her. "Everything," he told her and risked holding both of her shoulders. "I want you to follow your dreams. I want you to be there when the world needs saving and I want you to give me another chance even if I don't deserve it." He searched her face. "I need you Chloe. For so long I was blind and then I was afraid what would happen to our friendship and then I was too late." His forehead furrowed. "I don't think I can be who I am meant to be if I don't have you. I knew it before and I've had a whole year now to pound into my skull how messed up my life is without you, how messed up I am without you."

She looked up, blinking rapidly, her eyes glistening. "I get it; you want me to stay." Her mouth twisted. "I get it. I do. Jor-El played with your mind, you almost had to leave with the Kandorians, hell," dark sorrow clouded her eyes and roughened her voice, "you died tonight." She dragged in a shuddering breath. After swallowing hard, she regained control of her composure. "Which by the way is the only reason I'm even still speaking with you, but none of that has anything to do with you actually wanting me as more than a friend. Nothing's changed."

"You're wrong." He gave her a gentle shake. "I am glad I alive and yes, I'm glad I get to stay on Earth. Even as messed up as my mind was, I hated leaving you. I never even got to say goodbye, you just slipped away from me. I wanted to go after you but Oliver didn't think…

Chloe gasped, suddenly remembering the outside world. "Oliver! Oh!" Chloe grabbed Clark's hand. "He was taken. I was working on trying to find him when Hawkman brought you to Watchtower." She swallowed against the guilt that rose up. She remembered how desperate she'd been to find Oliver, but when Hawkman came in with Clark, everything else went out of focus. Her world still felt fuzzy but for her peace of mind, she needed to convince Clark to return right away.

Before she could form an argument, Clark squared his shoulders and nodded once. "Then we need to go."

Chloe's breath hitched and her eyes swam with tears. On some things, they always understood each other. She laid a hand on his chest. "There's something else I need to tell you too. Lois knows your secret."

"How?"

Chloe forced a rueful smile. "Seems the Blur kissed her and she recognized Clark Kent in those lips." Clark's eyes darted away and she thought she saw a hint of pink in his cheeks as he frowned.

"So she saw me…"

"Dead." She nodded. "I don't know how long it would have taken me to drag you to the portal if she hadn't been there to help. I told her if I didn't come back to go to Watchtower. I don't know how long she would wait." How could she have forgotten about Lois's place in this drama as well?

"We'll stop at the caves first." Clark decided. He picked up the red blanket and shook it out before draping it over Chloe's shoulders. He then tucked the ends together to help keep her warm, lifted her to his chest and sped off.

Chloe had hardly buried her face in his neck before the roaring feeling around her subsided. She glanced up to see they were outside the Kawatche caves. Night still ruled in Smallville, but her eyes adjusted quickly. "The truck's gone," she observed.

"The cave is empty." Clark confirmed and they zipped to the Kent farm. His truck was parked by the barn.

"Lois must have traded it in for her car and headed to Metropolis."

Clark nodded and lowered her feet to the ground. "Give me a second." He vanished and returned ten seconds later with damp hair and fresh clothing. He'd washed and exchanged his torn and stained wardrobe for jeans and a familiar blue t-shirt stretched taunt over his chest. "Do you want me to stop at the Talon?"

She shook her head. "I can shower and change at Watchtower." He gathered her back up into his arms and zeroed in on Metropolis.

At the edge of downtown, he slowed and then bounded up into the sky. Despite the circumstances, a thrill raced up her spine. As she twisted and craned her neck to see the shrinking streets below, one end of the crimson cloth slipped off her shoulder and trailed behind them as they arched past the gleaming globe turning on top of the Daily Planet. Moments later, they landed gently on the roof of Watchtower.

Clark set her on her feet and she unwrapped the red blanket from her shoulders. Before she could walk away, he laid a hand on her arm. He waited until she raised her eyes to meet his glance. His mouth was flat and his eyes intent. "We're not done," he told her. Still fighting the giddiness that came with traveling in Clark's arms, Chloe guarded her expression and only acknowledged his message with a curt nod.

Clark held open the rooftop hatch leading onto the upper tier of Watchtower. As Chloe entered, a tangle of voices and sounds rose from the main floor. Since none of the team noticed their arrival yet, she paused and looked down from the top of the curved staircase.

Every display screen was active. News reports, video clips, and camera feeds from around down town played across from them on the upper tier where Dinah was using a computer bank. Down below J'onn sat at the main desk, his fingers clacking away at the keyboard and Victor was plugged into the computer station in the middle of the room, his focus just as intent as he plowed through complex algorithms and computer code. Stalking back and forth between them was Oliver wearing his street clothes. He muttered something she couldn't understand before barking impatiently, "This is taking too long!"

The significance of his presence finally sunk in. They'd found Green Arrow.

Relief made her let out the breath she was holding. "Oh, thank goodness." She whispered softly and searched the room for the other person she was looking for. By the couches in the corner Courtney stood fussing with the knitted throws while Bart sat on the opposite side tossing what sounded like corn chips up in the air and catching them in his mouth one at a time.

On the other upper level, Dinah pulled up a new video. A shaky image showing a plume of light shooting up to the heavens filled her screen. Without taking her eyes off the screen, she called out to the room. "I found another upload."

Equally focused, Victor called back, "Take the IP address. We'll worry about what any eyewitnesses are saying later."

Clark touched Chloe's arm and spoke quietly, "That's the bridge to the new Kandorian universe." She nodded and kept scanning the room. Maybe Lois hadn't arrived yet. A new worry had her tightening her grip on the railing. What if in a fit of panic Lois ran her car off the road? Just then, Courtney straightened up and Chloe spied a figure lying on a section of the couch. Courtney leaned over once more to finish smoothing one of Martha Kent's crocheted Afghans and said, "There. Lois should be nice and warm until she wakes up."

Once again, Chloe sighed with relief. Lois was safe as well. Clark covered the hand she had squeezing the railing with his own. She jumped a little but didn't pull away. She stared at their hands for a moment while she tried to process the warmth and comfort the simple touch brought. During the past year they'd hardly touched, but the brush of his hand still spoke loudly, sharing her relief and maybe even understanding her sudden trepidation. The urgency that propelled her from the arctic was gone and now she found it hard to move forward, a little afraid at what would happen next. She looked up at Clark. Her heartbeat began to beat fast. Did he feel the same way as well?

Down below, J'onn's rapid typing suddenly stopped. Oliver swung in behind him to look over his shoulder. "What? What is it?"

The Martian Manhunter raised his head. "They've returned."

Oliver dragged his hand over his face and furiously pushed away from the desk. "I don't care if Bart and the bird man are back. We need to find Chloe!"

Bart called over his shoulder, "Hey, I've been back from the city sweep for five minutes!"

"And," began a voice coming from behind Chloe, "I don't think J'onn was talking about me either." Chloe turned to see Carter Hall ducking through the outer hatch with his helmet in his hands.

Happy and surprised shouts rang out from the main floor. "Clark! Chloe!"

In an instant, Bart was there crushing her in a hug. "I told them! I told them you'd come home," he gleefully bragged squeezing Chloe and planting a wet smack on her cheek before letting go and playfully punching Clark in the stomach. "Dude, that was a close one."

"You have no idea," Clark mumbled. Bart grinned and then zipped around the room, his happiness making it impossible for him to stand still.

Oliver made it up the stairs next. At the top, he hesitated as his eyes swept over the pair. The pause was short lived. He clutched Chloe by the shoulders, pushed her hair back from her face, and tried to catch her eye. She couldn't meet his glance. A second later, he simply pulled her into his arms, not saying a word.

Chloe couldn't stay silent. "I'm so glad they found you." She forced herself to relax and return his embrace. This was Oliver. What was wrong with her? "I was so worried," she added but then trailed off realizing that from the time she'd reached the portal in the Kawatche caves until those last seconds in the arctic, she'd actually not spared a single thought to the fate of the Green Arrow.

Even before Hawkman arrived with a dying Clark, solely focusing on Oliver's capture hadn't been easy. A looping refrain of 'Clark is leaving' and 'I'll never see Clark again' kept cutting in. Before Green Arrow's abduction, she'd been holding it together by willing her attention strictly on the job and Oliver. As he'd been from their first attempt to find fun in a dreary life, he had made a good distraction.

He remained the brightest spot in a dismal year, but whatever she'd felt for Oliver was squeezed aside when a bleeding Clark landed at her feet and unleashed a tidal wave of familiar emotion.

Could she ever recapture what she had been beginning to feel about Oliver? Compared next to the feelings she carried for Clark, she wasn't sure trying would be fair to either one of them. Oliver mattered, but there'd been no room left for him, not in the anxious rush to get Clark to the fortress, or in the resigned hopelessness of the end. Oliver was a pretty ripple in the pond; Clark was the ocean and life itself -even if she wasn't sure she dared dip her toes in that tidal pool again.

Except…Clark kept insisting he felt the same about her as she did him but in trying to make her believe he admitted to a complete betrayal and yet next to him being gone from existence what did that really matter? Chloe was so confused. Could she really believe Clark, let alone forgive him? With effort, she pushed the question aside. Her final choices about Clark didn't change what she had to do right now.

"Oliver, we need to talk."

Oliver shook his head. "Later," he told her as he let Courtney peel her away. Chloe called herself a coward, but took the reprieve.

"My turn!" Courtney shouted and caught Chloe an enthusiastic hug. "You had every one scared to death!" Stargirl scolded. "And you," she said throwing a glance Clark's way, "Carter said you were dead!"

"I was; Chloe saved me." Clark turned his aquamarine eyes on his best friend, his approval blatant in his eyes. Chloe fought the urge to blush.

"I didn't really do anything," she insisted. "Sunrise comes early in the arctic." She left out the part where she thought she'd failed and faced death as her punishment. "The sunlight coming through the fortress walls revived him." Courtney released her to give Clark his welcome back and Chloe found herself passed again, this time to a set of strong male arms. His short beard rasped along her jaw.

"Which couldn't have happened if you had not refused to give up hope." Carter Hall pulled back to look at her. "You told me and I didn't listen, for which I ask forgiveness. I'm very sorry." Chloe quickly nodded, not wanting to remember those moments when she realized Clark was dead. None of the bruised feelings or misunderstandings had mattered anymore. All her regrets had stood in stark clarity. All the wasted time. All the undone dreams.

Carter turned and clasped Clark on the arm as well. "And I promise I won't give up so quickly again," he solemnly vowed to Clark before smiling and adding a simple welcome. "Good to have you back among us."

Courtney happily grinned, looped her arm through Chloe's, and led her down the steps with Clark, Carter and Oliver following. She tilted her head next to Chloe's and asked, "Did you really go all the way to the arctic?" Chloe nodded and Courtney clutched her arm excitedly. "Oh, then you must want coffee! I made coffee! I'll get you coffee." She scampered away before Chloe could answer. Victor met them at the bottom of the steps grinning.

"Fair warning, I don't think Star Girl has ever made coffee before." He gave Chloe a quick squeeze and grabbed Clark's palm in a slick handshake.

Clark answered for Chloe, "If desperate enough, there isn't any way that Chloe doesn't take her coffee."

Cyborg cocked his head to the side and laughed, "Don't say I didn't warn you. Speaking of fair warnings," he jerked his thumb toward her computers, "you have to tell me what you did to jack up the satellite security on the fortresses feed. Me and Manhunter have been trying to hack it for hours."

A spark of pride flashed in her eyes. "I have the security piggy backing off of dozens of governmental and multi-national corporations. Without the passwords you first have to clear everyone's security before you can even test mine."

"I should have known. I think I'm tangled up in the snares Wayne Industries has laying around. Gotta wonder what they're trying protect. The Pentagon was easier to crack."

Chloe nodded enthusiastically, "I know, did you see the…"

"Please don't get him started again on the techno-babble." Canary interrupted, slipping past Clark to pat Chloe on the back. "So much for following protocol," she chided. "You couldn't have brought a com link and called in? It was bad enough to hear Kent was gone, but to lose our Watchtower too?" She shook her head.

Chloe's forehead furrowed. "You're right. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking."

"No, you were too busy getting the job done." She gave her another quick hug. "Well done." She turned to Clark. "Glad to see you among the living. The puddle of blood you left behind was pretty daunting."

Clark smirked, "I bet you're just complaining because they made you clean it up."

Dinah smirked right back at him, "No, I believe J'onn was gallant enough to take care of that, but I did get to clean up the other mess you made." She inclined her head toward the couches. "Just a small, close range, subsonic pulse to knock her out. She'll be fine but she won't stay asleep much longer."

Clark nodded nervously while Courtney cheerfully returned with a large red and blue mug and pushed it into Chloe's hands. "Here you go." Chloe gratefully took a sip and then paused without swallowing. Courtney's face fell. "Oh, it's too cold, isn't it?" She morosely chewed on her bottom lip. "I forgot to turn the burner on."

Chloe quickly nodded and with too much enthusiasm added, "Otherwise I'm sure it would have been wonderful."

"I can fix that." Clark activated his heat vision, ignoring Chloe's protests that it wasn't necessary and Victor's suppressed chortles. With Courtney watching expectantly, Chloe took another sip and after chewing something, swallowed and then offered her thanks. Courtney beamed and went to make more. Bart zipped after her, probably looking for something else in the kitchen to eat.

Chloe noticed Oliver quietly taking a seat on the steps and even odder, the usually antagonistic Carter Hall placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. Canary flanked him on the other side. Could Oliver have guessed just what she needed to talk to him about? What were the others seeing? Chloe's eyes flickered back to J'onn. He'd been very quiet since their return, watching and observing. He now offered his greetings.

"It is good to see you both alive and well."

"It's good to finally be back." Clark replied.

"I fear I must ask at what cost." They looked at him and he expanded his strange comment. "Your minds are both greatly agitated. What has Jor-El done?"

"It isn't what Jor-El has done, but what he has allowed undone."

"But you have changed." Oliver observed neutrally.

Clark locked gazes with Oliver. He slowly shook his head. "Changed, no. Just getting back to normal."

"What do you mean?" Bart looked back and forth between them.

Canary also was watching them carefully. "He is different. Chloe, what does it mean?"

What had Oliver and Canary noted so quickly marking Clark's change? Chloe wrapped her arms tightly around her middle and like always, tried to supply the answers the team needed. "Right after Clark faced Doomsday, when he was still weak and injured, Jor-El did something that manipulated Clark into rejecting his humanity."

"Yes, your mind," J'onn nodded slowly. "The difference is startling now. How could I have missed this before?"

"Your abilities returned about half way through my time under Jor-El's influence. By that time I suppose the way I was behaving seemed normal." Clark offered as an explanation.

"Rejecting your humanity?" Bart's eyes grew big. "So that's why you went off grid for awhile only to show up later and go Goth?"

"I abandoned you," he spoke to the room but his eyes lingered on Chloe, "and nearly turned the world over to Zod."

"That didn't happen." Hawkman interjected.

"Dr. Fate saw you as hope for mankind. He wouldn't be wrong." Courtney added loyally.

"Wait, wait, what are we saying here?" Victor piped up. "We're talking Jor-El, the Artificial Intelligence father. I thought this guy was supposed to help you."

"Help you, freeze you in a chunk of solid ice, whatever." Oliver shrugged.

Chloe frowned. "The AI thought he was helping. I don't think he appreciated Clark letting someone like me step in between Davis and the phantom zone. He told me he thought Clark was too influenced and so he removed the influence from his life."

Clark reached for her hand. "Jor-El was wrong. Putting Davis in the Phantom Zone might have been the easier thing to do, but condemning the man along with the monster without even trying to save him was wrong." He turned to face the rest of the team. "I was also wrong in trying to do everything on my own. In the past year I've felt what it is really like to be alone and I don't like it."

"Wait a second, what about Lois the drooling Lane?" Bart nodded toward the couches. "If you were supposed to be all down with people, why were you dating Lane?"

Chloe answered again "Clark grew up on Earth. Jor-El confessed he misjudged Clark's stake in humanity. When he began to actively resist Jor-El's interference, he gave him back a connection to humanity."

"But not his real connection," Oliver guessed. "He substituted Lois, didn't he? She didn't deserve to be used like that."

"And now she knows your secret. She knows all our secrets."

"I can erase her memory of the last day," offered the Manhunter.

"NO!" Chloe snatched her hand free from Clark and rounded on J'onn. "No one gets their memories erased. Do you hear me!"

"Over reacting much." Bart muttered.

Courtney looked hurt. "We wouldn't do it to hurt her."

"I agree with Chloe." Chloe heard Clark's voice behind her. "This isn't like Waller and Checkmate. Lois hasn't done anything wrong. We don't have the right to take her memories.

There was a pause and then Oliver stared at Clark and said, "You told her."

Clark nodded. "I had to."

"Told her what?" Bart asked.

"Wait, you knew and never told me?" Chloe narrowed her eyes at Oliver.

"It didn't matter anymore."

"How many other people knew?" She pinned her gaze on Clark.

"Lana, that's it."

"So much for the solidarity among sisters," she muttered angrily before announcing. "I can't handle this right now. I'm going to take a shower." She stalked past a mostly confused group of heroes and took the second spiral staircase up a level to the full bathroom facilities leaving Clark and Oliver to answer any questions. After she slammed the bathroom door shut, she realized she was also trusting Clark to make sure Lois kept her memories. It surprised her for a moment, that she still trusted Clark. How much though?

Clark winced when the door slammed shut. Only then did he feel the weight of the team watching him and waiting for more answers. He had a question of his own for Oliver. "You knew from the moment you saw us something was different. How?"

"You were holding her hand," Oliver answered.

"The way you looked at Chloe," Canary added. She tilted her head studying Clark. "You couldn't stop watching her."

"You wouldn't leave her side." Carter also contributed. "You never moved more than a foot away even in all that chaos."

Bart emerged from the kitchenette area with a new bag of chips. "So we get to dump the weirdness between Boy Scout and Watchtower. Back when this team first started they were always touching and stuff and doing the silent communication thing." Impulse waved his bag of cheese puffs toward Oliver, "And didn't you tell me how Kent absolutely freaked the first time he found out Chloe was moonlighting for the team."

Bart grinned. "He went all overprotective caveman." Flexing his muscles and beating his chest, he acted the moment out. "Not Chloe! Uhgg! Anyone but Chloe! Grunt!" He laughed and pointed at Oliver. "Am I right? Things are just finally getting back to normal." He downed a handful of orange curls and shook his head. "I don't get why everyone's making such a big deal."

Victor rolled his eyes and ripped the bag out of Bart's hand. "Moron. Could you be anymore clueless?"

"Hey! I was eating that."

"Then take it to go." Cyborg grabbed him by his collar and ushered him toward the stairs.

"Why do I have to leave?"

"We're both leaving. They don't need a crowd hanging around."

"Maybe I should go as well," Star Girl looked to Carter for guidance. He nodded and fitted his helmet.

Canary held out a hand, "I'm all for leaving the pertinent players to sort themselves out, but what _are_ we going to do about Lane?"

"We're not touching her memories." Clark growled.

"But can she even be trusted?" Dinah still pragmatically asked.

"Yes, she can be trusted." Oliver resignedly vouched for her. "She doesn't want to be a part of this life, but she's kept my secret safe."

Dinah shifted her eyes to Manhunter. "J'onn?" She asked, waiting for his input. When he nodded, she finally nodded in return. "Ok, I'm leaving it in your hands Kent, yours and Chloe's." Canary followed the rest of the crew to the roof.

J'onn waited until they'd gone. "I understand that nothing is yet settled." Clark confirmed his guess with a nod. J'onn then looked back and forth between Clark and Oliver. "This I tell you, if Chloe now follows through with her decision to leave, you will not find a way to sway her choice in the future and then all of us will share the loss," he informed them and then vanished in a streak of hot acid green right through the solid wall.

"Just who was he talking to?" Clark mumbled staring off after Martian Manhunter.

"No." Oliver interjected and jumped to his feet.

"What?" Clark turned to face him.

"You heard J'onn, nothing is settled yet. So no, you don't just get Chloe after all these years of ignoring her and making her feel like second best."

"I never meant to make her feel like that. She's always been a part of my life so it took me a while to figure out how important she was and just when I would have made sure she understood, Jor-El stepped in, messed with my mind and made me think I had feelings for Lois."

Oliver scowled. "Did you ever think that maybe you deserved what you got?" He narrowed his eyes. "Maybe he took the whole idea from what you had him do to Chloe."

Clark stiffened. "Maybe I deserved whatever I got, but everything has changed now."

Oliver wiped his hand over his face in frustration. "We were happy. I made her happy. Are you going to swoop in and take that away from her?" He started to turn away, but then stopped and shot back over his shoulder, "Oh that's right, you still haven't figured out the flying."

Clark set his jaw but otherwise ignored the dig about flying. "No, I'm not going to make Chloe do anything that makes her unhappy, but I know I can make her happy and I'm done staying quiet about it."

Oliver sliced his hand up through the air. "How can you be so sure of yourself?"

"Because we fit," he insisted. "We always have. The first time I met her, we were only kids and I knew even then that the curious city girl standing in the loft of my barn belonged there with me."

The memory softened the intensity in his eyes but not the certainty in his voice. "Maybe I haven't always shown it, but I know Chloe. I see her strength and fears, her beauty and her heart. I know her dreams. I know she's sacrificed too much. I know how much she hides. I know I can make her smile for no reason and laugh just because it feels good because she does the same thing for me. I know I will never let her feel unloved again and I know I don't feel really alive without her." Oliver scrunched up his forehead and pinched the bridge of his nose between two finger as if he had developed a sudden headache. Clark took a step back, "But I also know if she chooses you, I won't stop her. I've lost that right."

Oliver sat down wearily. "She's already chosen you. She never stopped choosing you." He leaned his head in his hand. "As long as you didn't see her, I had a chance. I should have known no one could be that stupid without deliberate brain damage."

"I don't know." Clark's mouth twisted wryly. "She doesn't believe me. I told her I love her but she's convinced I'm having some kind of post-traumatic distress.

"Huh," Oliver considered ruefully with a ghost of a smile playing around his lips. "Maybe we're both screwed."

"I'm glad I can make you feel better," he dryly replied.

"You know what makes me feel better?" Oliver asked as he stood up. "That while I'm off officially getting dumped, you have to explain to Lois everything she just overheard."

Clark whipped his head around. Behind them, Lois was on the couch awake, sitting up with her knees tenting the knitted throw and looking at him curiously or maybe angrily, sometimes he had a hard time reading her expressions.

As Olive left, Clark swore he heard him laughing.


	7. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

"How much did you hear?" Clark asked warily.

"A lot. Not enough. Maybe too much." Lois shook her head. Her hair was matted in the back and there was a dark wet spot on the front of her shirt. She saw where his gaze fell and tugged up the blanket. "I don't drool," she hissed.

He didn't know what to say to that, so he changed the subject. "You should know that Chloe is safe," he said, hoping to reassure her.

She nodded and waved her hand dismissively. "Right, she went to take a shower."

Clark winced. "You were awake that whole time and didn't say anything?"

"The ones who noticed me didn't seem to care and for once staying quiet seemed like the best way to get answers. Be careful what you wish for, right?" An awkward silence hung between. "You were dead," she finally accused.

He nodded.

"She saved you." Lois wasn't asking a question but Clark answered anyway.

"Yes." He shuffled closer. "And I wanted thank you too. Chloe said she couldn't have gotten my…me through the caves without your help."

She scoffed. "I think we both know that's not true. I'm the one who tried to talk her out of going. I couldn't." She sounded a little bitter about that.

"So about the rest that you heard…," he began, changing the subject again.

"You mean where a computer swapped your feelings for different cousins and left you acting like a jerk? Yeah I heard." Agitated, she flipped back the blanket lying over her legs, swung them around, stood up and began searching around for her shoes.

"I guess that means the speech I prepared," Lois began, "on the off chance you didn't stay dead and I got the opportunity to kill you," she paused and wiggled her feet into the pumps lined up at the end of the couch, "for lying to me about the very essence of who you are," she turned around until she saw the coffee maker and then zeroed in on it, "while actively making me think you were planning our future is kind of pointless now," she gave him a saccharine smile. "What with us only dating because you got tricked into thinking I was Chloe." She glared at him. Clark didn't have any trouble interpreting her feelings now.

"I'm sorry." He didn't have much more he could say. He couldn't promise to make it up to her. He couldn't tell her she was wrong.

"Save it." She grabbed a mug and then traded it for a blue enamel travel cup. "For a while I thought I must have loved you, but not only do I not know you at all, now I don't even remember why I thought I wanted who I thought you were." She filled the carafe with coffee and replaced the pot back on the burner.

Lois shook her head as if she was confused. "You were Chloe's crush, not mine." She fitted the cover on her cup and as she picked it up, her eyebrows lifted. "You know, looking at my life, I'm not sure I even know who I am. Am I living my life or did I just pick up on what Chloe wanted?"

She paused to take a slug of her coffee, grimaced and spit it out. She stared at the cup in astonished horror. "I don't think I even like coffee!" She dumped the contents of the travel cup in the sink and leaned forward, bracing herself with two hands.

Clark glanced up toward the bathroom, wondering if he was going to need backup as Lois spiraled down in her freak out.

"You know," Lois confessed, "I used to be kind of jealous of how Chloe had it all together. She seemed to have always known what she wanted in life but for the last six months, I'm the one that had everything she wanted and now I don't know if I want any of it."

"I wanted to live in exotic locations, not in a landlocked city like Metropolis let alone Smallville, USA. If I hadn't quit my job with Martha, at least I'd be wheeling and dealing in Washington with the people who make the real changes or should be making the real changes. That's not the point. The point is I'm at my best when I can make something happen. Journalism is all about sitting around and waiting for someone else to make something happen and then parrot it back to an uninterested public."

"Lois I don't think that's true," he began to protest, but she wasn't listening to him.

"I hate deadlines. I hate typing. I hate proofreading. I hate checking sources. I hate all the boring stories in between the big headlines. I hate the smell of newsprint." She made a sour face and waved a hand. "The whole basement at the Daily Planet reeks of it. I never had a favorite journalism teacher, just that old bag that technically was in charge at the Torch who watched me like I was going to steal the silver and yet somehow that's my life now, it's all I have."

"Lois…"

"No, it's true. I've put everything into my career, a career that alternatively bores me to death or just about kills me. H ell, I guess I will use that ticket to Africa." Clark stood a little straighter. Lois going to Africa was probably good for them both, but he stayed silent. She didn't really seem to want anything from him. She'd heard enough.

She turned on the faucet and splashed some water on her face. "Maybe it's my chance to start over, see if I'm doing this for me or if I just was seduced by the promise of fame and fortune." She grabbed a towel, patted her face dry and glanced around the room. "I can't believe this place. I see Chloe all over. Your mom's throws, Jimmy's picture, the couches, the colors, and I'm pretty sure that is the same kind of coffee maker we have in the apartment, the one she can't live without."

Lois walked to the center of the room. "I feel so stupid. All this year I thought you and Chloe just drifted apart, the best friend thing finally burning out, but she was involved behind the scenes with everything important in your life even when some computer hidden in the arctic hypnotized you into not returning her calls." She pivoted around and caught his questioning glance. "Yeah, we lived together, I knew how hard it was for you to dial her number." She shook her head. "You know, there was a part of me that was even kind of flattered that this time I was the one getting your attention. How awful is that? And now, I don't even know why I cared. All of this is insane. This high tech headquarters is hers and when I got here it was filled to the brim with a bunch of masked vigilantes not wearing their masks."

"About that."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to tell anyone. I still believe in the good the Blur can do for Metropolis even if his alter ego is a complete fraud. Not to mention that apparently Chloe is way too caught up in this world to ever risk her exposure."

"Thank you," Clark told her solemnly. Neither one of them mentioned the other option she overheard involving her forgetting any of this ever happened.

"Well, then, there's just one last thing." She crossed her arms and nodded her head once, "Well, go on," she urged.

Clark tilted his head. "Go on with what?"

"Oh, please, it should be so obvious."

"Do you have some questions, is that it? I suppose you deserve…"

Lois blanched. "No, god no. I don't want any more details. Your life is way too complicated for me" She mock shuddered. "When it was just the Blur, everything was simple. A hero, all alone, facing off against injustice, but that's not the Blur at all. If you ever seemed lonely, it was because you wanted it that way." Lois raised her hand, forestalling any protests. "Ok, granted, this last year you might have been tricked into thinking you wanted it that way, but long before that happened you and Chloe have had this weird part time co-dependency, part time symbiotic like relationship. Her side I got. Chloe is beyond loyal, but you? The wishy-washy way you kept going back to Lana whenever she showed up willing while keeping Chloe at your beck and call?" she shook her head. "It's no wonder Chloe doesn't believe you really want her."

"But I do. I was an idiot before. I'll make it up to her so she never wonders again."

Lois held up a hand again. "Easy big boy, I said Chloe doesn't believe you. Me, I don't doubt what you feel." Her mouth twisted wistfully to the side. "If you could only see your face when you talk about Chloe." She shook her head. "That doesn't mean you are getting off without doing this right."

"Fine, just tell me what I'm supposed to say to her."

"Don't get ahead of yourself. When it comes to convincing her, you're on your own. Right now you should be thinking what to say to me."

Clark frowned. "You already said you believed me about Chloe."

She rolled her eyes. "And to think at one point I tried to convince myself your cluelessness could be charming. Pay attention. As Chloe's closest relative, if your intentions toward her are really honorable, than you should be asking for my permission."

"Permission to love Chloe?" His clenched his jaw and clenched his fists. "I'm not asking permission from anyone."

"Touchy. Ok, fine not permission, how about blessing then?"

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Just like that?"

"On one condition." Now it was Lois's turn to get serious. Her expression turned fierce and she poked him in the chest. "Don't you dare hurt her again. Only two things she's ever wanted, to be a reporter for the Daily Planet and to have the boy she loved love her in return. The way I look at it, it's your fault she doesn't have either. So either make it right or stay the h ell away. If her final answer is no, you need to let her go and give her the chance to make a new life. You owe her that much for all the crap you've put her through."

* * *

After stepping out of the shower, Chloe wrapped up in a thick white towel. She picked up the bottle of aspirin somebody left out by the sink and put it away in the medicine cabinet. She shut the panel and then used her palm to wipe the moisture off the mirror. Almost immediately, the fog began reforming. She paused and watched the steam creep back over the glass until her reflection blurred and then vanished. Was that symbolic of her life? Despite the sauna like temperature in the bathroom, goose bumps broke out along her forearms. Was the self-clarity she felt in the arctic the real thing or had it been just the illusory remnant of a life already fading and on the verge of permanently disappearing? She shivered.

A short pair of knocks rapped against the door at the same time somebody tried to turn the knob. When the privacy lock kept the somebody out, she heard another set of knocks along with Oliver's voice. "Chloe, let me in."

Still mesmerized by the obscured silvery shadow she made in the mirror, she answered without moving. "I'm not dressed yet."

The door handle rattled again. Chloe heard a pop and then a cool draft snaked around her legs. In the mirror, she could just make out the shape of another figure standing behind her. Were two unfocused objects better than one? She crossed her arms, and tried to throw off the strange feeling. "That wasn't an invitation," she informed her intruder.

"It would have been yesterday." Oliver replied and closed the door.

She closed her eyes and scrunched up her forehead. He was probably right, but the chasm between then and now couldn't be bridged and when he came up behind her and grasped her bare shoulders, she flinched and shrank away. He let her slip out of his grasp.

She liked Oliver. She genuinely enjoyed the time they'd carved out for fun. She'd never before learned the art of taking your pleasure where you could find it, but Oliver had been an astute teacher. She relished his zest and his blatant appreciation for what she had to offer. It had been emboldening and by keeping their relationship light, they'd both found a convenient solution to the loneliness that came from hiding their true self from the world.

At times when she was with Oliver, she felt like a different person. He didn't truly know the person she'd been in the past so pretending that life hadn't mattered was easier. The Chloe Sullivan Oliver saw hadn't buried every dream and hope, because the Chloe Sullivan he saw was learning to skim across the surface of life. She had her scars, but they sealed off the real pain. That Chloe Sullivan worked hard to appear carefree and relaxed outside of work because, really, the alternative was too depressing.

Their relationship quickly moved beyond friends with benefits to finding real companionship. Maybe if she'd never been forced to rip open her old scars…who knows what they might have meant to each other, but that road was closed to her. She might not like what her treacherous heart told her, but she was finished lying to herself. She had to end this. It wasn't fair to Oliver.

She braced herself and turned to face him. His gaze moved over her from head to toe. The same warm look that once made her feel wanted and appreciated now made her uncomfortably squirm.

She nervously smoothed back her water slicked hair, forced a faint smile and a quick apology. "Sorry, but maybe you could just give me a minute to change and then we can talk."

He looked away and laughed. Her chest hurt at the brittle sound. "Don't drag this out. Just say it. Say the words that end us.

She shook her head sadly. "I never wanted to hurt you."

"Then don't." He dropped any pretense at coolness or control. Heat flared in his eyes and he backed her against the sink, cupped the sides of her face and dived in to remind her of what they had together. He ground his mouth against hers, waiting for her usual passionate response. Even when it didn't come, he couldn't stop the pleas that fell from his lips. "Pick me, pick us," he begged breathlessly. "Don't throw away what we have now or what I know we could have in the future." She firmly pushed him away, shaking her head. He let go and stepped back, but he didn't want to give up. "You don't even believe Clark really loves you. Give me one good reason why we won't work."

She lifted her sad hazel eyes to meet his gaze. "Because I'm in love with Clark." She awkwardly shrugged. "Doesn't matter if Clark doesn't feel the same about me. As long as he's in my life, I can't love you back." She dropped her head back and wiped at her eyes.

"And there it is." Oliver took another step back, pushed his hands deep in his pockets and slowly blew out his breath, forcing a transformation back into the carefree playboy. "I knew this was happening." A wry smile played on his lips. "I walked in here knowing, but apparently there was still a sliver of hope that needed to be pulverized."

A wave of compassion passed over her face and she took an instinctive step toward him. "Oliver…"

He held up his hand, "No. Sympathy might just do me in right now." He stared at her again, this time as if he was memorizing her face. He finally asked. "So where do you go from here?"

Chloe tugged her towel up an inch. "Away. I don't know where, just some place to pick up the pieces and rebuild from the scratch."

He frowned. "What about Watchtower? What about everything you've started?"

"I'm proud of this place, but I can't stay. Even if I could, this isn't all I want in life and as long as I'm the only one playing big brother, it will consume all my energy. J'onn and Victor can take care of the computer systems," she further explained. "Hopefully the team will take turns playing Watchtower for each other. I think maybe all that power is better shared than left in one set of hands."

Besides, she thought to herself, Clark was right. Watchtower wasn't her dream. She should have been putting her life back together once they'd removed Brainiac from her head and she'd gone through the Jimmy break up, but then she'd gotten an up close look at the duo of Lane and Kent. Without realizing it, her feelings for Clark tangled up with her desire to be a journalist and suddenly there didn't seem a place for her in that life. Wherever she went, she wanted at least a shot at that part of her dreams. Damm Clark for being right. Damm him for knowing something she'd only figured out in the dark moments in the arctic when she thought it was too late.

"There's another option. You could turn over Watchtower but still stay in Metropolis," Oliver suggested. "You adore Metropolis. Me, I'm thinking it's time I spent more time in Star City. Metropolis attracts more than its share of messes, but until the next big thing hits the fan, I think it's time the Green Arrow picks a hometown. Who knows, maybe he'll start attracting fan clubs like the Blur instead of angry mobs like Hawkman."

She reached out and touched his forearm. "I know wherever you go, you will do good things."

"So you'll stay in town?"

She shook her head. "You're not the reason I'm leaving. I can't stay." She pressed her lips together and blinked rapidly. "The city needs Clark and I can't pretend I don't need more from him than what he can give me and I won't drive myself crazy trying to make Clark feel something he really doesn't."

Oliver ran his hand back through his hair and sighed. "I can't believe I'm asking this, but how do you know he doesn't?"

"He doesn't," she insisted flatly, wrapping her arms tightly around her middle. "I would know it."

Oliver pursed his lips, then shook his head and started to walk away. He stopped with his hand on the door and turned back. "Look, I told you tonight before you ever walked in to Watchtower that I knew we would be saying goodbye."

She glanced up. He had her attention.

"It's not that you were willing to sacrifice your life to save Clark, I'd like to believe that any one of us would have done the same, but I had to face some differences." He rubbed his hand over his mouth. "You blindly threw yourself into saving him without weighing the odds, without making any back up plan, but even more than that, tonight I understood maybe for the first time that you would have done the same thing even if you were ninety-nine percent sure you couldn't save him. I'm not sure a hundred percent hopeless would have stopped you from trying.

She stubbornly raised her chin. "So I'm not as bright as you thought. What about it?"

A quick edgy smile flashed over his mouth. "It's just funny I guess. You'll die for Clark without a thought, but life," he shook his head, "that terrifies you." Chloe froze. "Can you really be so certain of what he feels when you can't get past your own fears?" She didn't know what to say and Oliver had nothing left he could say, so he slipped quietly out the door.

Chloe stood there, biting her lower lip. Of course she was afraid. She kept one arm still wrapped around her middle but brought her other arm up until her knuckles pressed against her mouth. Getting hurt was a certainty, the only question was the source of the pain.


	8. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

Clark paced impatiently while he waited for Oliver to leave. Lois left a few minutes earlier with instructions for him to tell Chloe she would call in a few days after she was settled. Chloe wasn't going to be thrilled about not seeing Lois before she left but so far she hadn't been thrilled with anything this evening.

No, that wasn't true. She'd been more than thrilled at finding him alive. Clark tried to concentrate on that moment, the moment she awoke and threw herself into his arms. That was how it should be between them, no holding back.

For a second tonight- or actually earlier this morning – when Chloe wrapped her arms around his neck and held tight, he'd been transported back to the dark field where he pulled her from a buried coffin, afraid he was too late. She'd clung to him and he'd held on just as tight, conscious that he never wanted to let her go. It was a big feeling that only got stronger as the Spring Formal approached.

Ironically, the hugeness of what he felt was probably the very reason he'd accepted Chloe's plea to stay just friends. Too much had been happening too quickly: seeing Chloe in a completely new light, grappling with the question of a new uncontrollable power, his father going missing, and the threat of his secret exposed to the world. Every part of his life had suddenly been out of control. Nothing had been happening the way he'd imagined.

When Chloe sparkled and swayed in his arms with her head resting perfectly against his chest, he'd gotten a glimpse of a tantalizing new life where nothing would ever be the same, but when everything else in his life started crashing down, he traded that vision for the comfort of the familiar. Had he been braver, their lives might have gone very differently, but he couldn't rewrite the past. Now he just wanted a chance at a new future.

A door above opened and shut. Clark waited at the bottom of the stairs with one hand resting on the railing and his head down, putting off for as long as possible what he would read on Ollie's face. J'onn insisted nothing was decided. Would Chloe choose Oliver? He felt the vibrations through the railing as Oliver descended onto each tread. He didn't keep him in suspense.

"So, that's that. It's your turn now." Clark looked up. Oliver's smile didn't reach his eyes. "I'd wish you luck but I'm still kind of fantasizing about slipping on a kryptonite ring and kicking your ass." He smiled stiffly again and shrugged. "Oh, well, never the right accessory when you need it."

Queen brushed past Clark's shoulder, bumping him out of the way and calling over his shoulder, "See ya around Kent." Half way to the elevator, he turned and wagged his finger in Clark's direction, "Actually, let's not for awhile."

Clark absorbed the white strain around Oliver's mouth and the tightness by his eyes and nodded. "If that's what you want."

Oliver dipped his head to the side, considering. "Not too sure about that either right now, but yeah, the don't call me, I'll call you thing sounds good." He turned to leave again only to pause by the double doors and glance back once more. "Hey Boy Scout," he called, catching Clark as he was starting up the stairs.

He turned back to face Oliver. "Yeah?"

Oliver wasn't smiling anymore. His eyes fixed intently on the closed bathroom door on the second floor. He shook his head and then slid his glance to Clark. "You better not screw this up," he warned savagely and walked away.

Clark waited until he heard the elevator engage before he finished climbing the stairs. A short walk down the hall and Clark nervously knocked on the bathroom door with J'onn, Lois, and Oliver's words of warnings playing loudly in the background of his mind. He knocked again when he didn't get a response. After the third time, he opened his senses to confirm Chloe was inside. When he registered the familiar lull of her heartbeat, he didn't wait for permission to enter.

To his surprise, the door was unlocked. It swung open to reveal Chloe, still dewy from her shower, staring as if hypnotized at the misty mirror. The ivory towel wrapped tightly around her body covered only to mid thigh, leaving her creamy limbs exposed and giving Clark an unexpected flashback to an interrupted shower at a remote inn.

He swallowed hard as he replayed the memory in crystal clarity. He could see the welcome in her eyes, the arc of her neck, the discreet curves of her upper body, the luring taper of her waist, the provocative flare of her hips, the elegant lines of her legs and all that smooth pale skin. He felt his temperature rise and a hard tension grip his body. It was all he could do to stop from gathering up her fragrant form and carrying her off, but how could that solve anything?

Still, he was unable to resist getting closer, taking small steps until he was directly behind her. Looking down, he noticed she stood with her arms wrapped around her middle and her eyes squeezed shut. He drew even closer.

Chloe felt Clark's hands slide over her bare shoulders. She didn't have to open her eyes to know it was him. She was attuned to the familiar weight and feel of his touch, could even sense his radiant heat. Her body betrayed her; she needed to keep up her guard but instead, she felt tension draining out of her muscles. She desperately wanted to lean back into his solid warmth, but she didn't dare give in.

She was so tired. All those years guarding her heart wore her down. She didn't know how to go on. It seemed her only defense against a shattered heart was to run before the fractures splintered into a million shards and yet every cell in her body screamed at her to stay and stop fighting his pull. Loving Clark was as natural as breathing. Only with Clark did she find that feeling of security and challenge, of being lost, found, and set free to soar.

But while her devoted heart sang joyfully that he was close and snugly gathered up every utterance of devotion and love, cold reason told her to hide, to protect what was most vulnerable. She wasn't strong enough. She couldn't give in to her desires and hope to survive another rejection without losing the last recognizable traces of who she really was. Already she was almost a ghost. Hadn't she looked in the mirror and watched herself vanish? Why keep pretending? Feeling hopelessly lost but determined to dismiss Clark at once, she opened her eyes but instead of catching sight of another ephemeral image, she saw the unembellished reflection of Chloe Sullivan backed by Clark Kent.

Solid.

United.

Enduring.

She caught her breath. She was saved.

A moment passed and sanity slammed back into her. She stiffened, abruptly feeling absurdly foolish. How could she have let herself dramatize the tiny droplets of water left lingering from her shower? Almost as bad was her overreaction when the mirror cleared. He hadn't really rescued her; he just left the door open. Between the equalizing air rushing in from the hallway and the heat emanating from Clark, he'd cleared the humidity in the small space.

She accepted the rational explanation and yet on another level she felt as if she owed it to Clark to let him have his say instead of just saying a final goodbye. She bit her lip, feeling indecisive. Maybe she was grasping at excuses, trying to find a way to prolong the end. She continued to look at their reflection in the mirror. Did this really have to be the end?

He wanted to talk, so they would talk, but first she needed to trade the towel for real clothing. She was already feeling too exposed without being half-naked. Clark easily agreed to her request and went to wait in the other room. Chloe ignored her twinge of disappointment. She was being foolish again. She needed to let go of this clinging hope, so she dismissed such thoughts as Clark dismissed himself from the room.

She hurried to get dressed; if she lingered, it was only for the few minutes it took to dry her hair. Beyond that attention to vanity, she rejected putting in more wasted effort. She left on the hanger the figure- hugging suit that showed off her personal attributes to best advantage and instead pulled on a worn pair of jeans, a simple yellow tank top, and a comfortable, cozy red cardigan. She nixed make up, sticking to a light moisturizer and lip balm, which she reminded herself, was a necessity after the cold dry air of the arctic and not at all a means to make her lips appear shiny and plump.

Chloe left the safe confines of the bathroom braced for the looks and questions that would inevitably come from the rest of the team. Just what she needed, another level of noise added to the barrage of sounds usually coming from the wall of monitors. Surprisingly though, except for the low hum of electronics, Watchtower was silent. All systems were on standby.

From the landing she glanced around the room; the overhead lights were muted, the computers asleep and the couch vacant with only the half-heartedly placed knitted throw as a reminder of Lois's recent presence. Was everyone gone?

"Clark?" Her tentative question to the room did not bring a response. She frowned. The rest of the team leaving made some sense, but surely Clark wouldn't just leave? Her front teeth dug into her bottom lip. What if he figured out there was nothing left to say? Was Clark already gone from her life? A fist clenched around her heart and she scrambled down the steps shouting his name, "Clark!"

The air in front of her parted and her hair blew back.

"What is it? What's wrong?" He asked in concern, scanning the room for danger. Chloe felt an unwanted wave of relief wash over her. This wouldn't do. She couldn't get so upset about something that was going to happen soon anyway.

Clutching her trembling hands behind her back, she answered casually. "Nothing, nothing at all." He eyed her suspiciously and she spoke more sharply than she intended. "Look, you're the one that said we weren't done talking and then skipped out." She headed for the door. "If you're just going to waste my time I might as well leave."

"No, wait." He sped around her and stuck out his hand. "Here." He thrust a paper coffee cup from a nearby 24-hour convenience store toward her. "I know Stargirl's coffee was undrinkable even for you. I'm sorry, I thought I'd be back before you were ready."

Chloe slowly took the offering, knowing at least in this case, Clark had no reason to apologize. This was why she had to leave. After talking to Oliver, even though she still didn't believe Clark felt about her the same way she did him, she wondered if maybe she could stay and take what Clark could offer. He wanted to call it love, and maybe love was a part of any friendship, but already she made it about more than friendship, lashing out and reacting without control of her emotions. She should have known better. She needed all or so she was going to leave with nothing. The urge to find a place to curl up and weep was overwhelming but she didn't have that luxury yet.

The armor of clothing hadn't helped. Chloe still felt too exposed and too vulnerable. She needed something to distract her precarious emotions. Searching for control, she stalled by taking a sip of the beverage Clark thoughtfully fetched and found the cream and sugar perfectly balanced within her coffee. She blinked at the stinging sensation behind her eyes and seized on Lois's absence to distract her from a sudden wave of maudlin sentiment. It was only a cup of coffee!

"Where's Lois?"

Uneasiness passed over Clark's face. "She's not here."

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Obviously. Where did she go?"

"To catch a flight to Africa. She said she'd contact you for her stuff once she settled at the Bureau." Clark tensed, as if braced for her anger. She decided he had it right. Better mad than sad. Chloe let all her fears and frustrations amplify the irritation she felt about Lois leaving without a word. Anything to block the real feelings that bubbled too close to the surface.

"Africa?" She scowled. "And you just let her go?" She asked incredulously.

"It's what she wanted."

Chloe shook her head. "How could that be what she's wanted? Everything she's ever wanted is right here." She couldn't let Lois throw her life away. She crossed her arms. "You need to go after her and make her understand."

"She does." Clark insisted. "She overheard about Jor-El redirecting my feelings for you to her. We were done either way, but the switch made it easier for her to walk away knowing there wouldn't be any hard feelings."

Chloe was aghast. "No hard feelings? Walk away? No, that can't be right. She loved you!"

"That was based on a lie. It wasn't true for either one of us."

The corners of Chloe's mouth tugged sharply down. How far apart was the line between truth and fiction? "But you could make it true. Feelings like those don't easily disappear." Boy oh boy did she know that from first hand experience. Chloe turned away and pretended to drink from her cup, but she couldn't swallow.

Clark stepped up close behind her. "No. I can't make it true." His breath stirred the fine hairs at the back of her neck. "I've never been what Los needs in her life and she's not what I need. I need you." He reached for her.

She shrugged out of his grasp and lashed out with her tongue. "You got along just fine without me."

"No," he calmly disagreed, "I was a mess: reckless, selfish, foolish and frequently unkind."

"Oh, well, if you are doing a list, don't forget about your chronic bouts of vandalism," she snarked. He flushed but answered her seriously.

"I won't. Even though I was the one who ran away, I remember feeling abandoned and alone." He stepped closer. "Every time I left my mark, I was telling the world I was there. I needed proof because inside I was empty." He took another step toward her. "I lost you from my life and I stopped being the hero that I was supposed to be."

Her heart was beating too rapidly. He sounded sincere, but she couldn't back down now. "Hardly. You were still out there every day."

"As a duty." He moved to within an arms reach. She held her ground. "I had this hole I was trying to fill and I was doing it all wrong. I went looking to make the bad guys pay. I had it backwards. I should have been searching for somebody to save."

"Kind of a big distinction." She read in his gaze self-loathing and guilt and she wanted to hold him and remind him it wasn't his fault and tell him everything was going to be all right but she couldn't and so she transferred that frustration back at him. "Not surprising though. You're good at blinding yourself to the obvious. Can you even spell subtlety?" At her jab, he looked away, but not before Chloe caught a glimpse of real hurt dimming the light in his eyes. She swallowed. She couldn't just keep hurting him because she was hurting and so she softened her next comment. "But now you know what to do differently."

"Yes and I'll do my best to live up to my destiny, but this," he paused until she looked him in the eye, "me wanting you, isn't about duty."

"Ha!" She barked, regretting going easy on him. Real anger roared back to life. She slammed down her coffee cup on a nearby counter. "Of course this is about duty! You don't want me. You just feel obligated because of our past."

"Obligated? No, that's not it."

She talked over him as if he hadn't said a thing. "Mix that with guilt from the memory wipe,"

"I already loved you."

"and finding out about my ridiculous lingering feelings,"

"There's nothing ridiculous…"

"and you don't really want me, you just think I deserve a prize," she spat out. Clark stopped pleading. His mouth flattened and fury blazed in his eyes. Chloe suddenly worried she's gone too far.

"Then you're not listening to me." Frustrated, Clark grasped her by the hips and pulled her tightly against him. A hard ridge pressed against her. She glanced up in time to see tiny orange flames licking the center of Clark's blue green irises. Her breath caught hard in her throat and heat washed over her as he held her gaze. "You can't say I don't want you," Clark told her gruffly.

She refused to be intimidated. She arched an eyebrow. "Congratulations, you have a hard on. So what?" She pressed her hands against his chest. He tightened his hold on her hips. When he didn't budge, she shrugged, "You cheated death. It's natural to want to prove you're alive. I had a small hand in it. What you feel is just misplaced gratitude." She explained, dismissing his evident desire.

He rolled his eyes. "I've cheated death before. Two years ago the Martian Manhunter sacrificed everything to keep me alive and I promise you," he insisted dryly, "I never wanted to drop everything and make love to him."

"Please," she drawled sarcastically. "As if you ever felt that way about me."

Clark's face darkened. "Stop telling me what I feel. How can you deny it anyway after what almost happened between us?"

Her hurt bubbled over. "Easy, all I have to do is remember the look on your face when you realized I was the one you were making out with." Her eyes darted away. "You couldn't even look at me."

"You think I wanted to stop?" His hands slid up from her hips. He wrapped one arm around her waist and the other across her back, his hand diving into her hair to cradle the base of her skull. Crushing her close in his arms, he gently tucked her head under his chin and closed his eyes. "I couldn't look at you because every time I did, all I wanted to do was ignore everything but how you tasted. I wanted to close out all the pain and loneliness and stupid mistakes of the last year by loosing myself in you."

Digging her fists into the front of his shirt, Chloe shook her head, but kept her face pressed to his shoulder.

"You're right, no, not loosing myself… finding myself in you, with you." He loosened his hold and lifted her chin so she would look up at him. "I'm still trying to reconcile some of the things I did in the last year, but I don't have any confusion about how I feel about you."

Unshed tears glistened in her eyes and her voice sounded wobbly to her ears. "But you stopped. You didn't want me."

"What I wanted was to do this right." He traced his thumb over the pattern of moles on her cheek. "After everything I've put you through, you deserved so much more."

"I deserved being rejected again?"

He looked stricken. "I never meant…no, Chloe, we were in the Arctic. You were covered in blood, my blood, you just fainted from exhaustion and yet still I barely had enough self-control not to make love to you for the first time in the same room that houses the artificial intelligence that once almost killed you." He leaned his forehead against hers and rubbed the nape of her neck. "I want you, but more than that, I love you. Please, I'm begging you to believe me."

She released a ragged breath. "This isn't fair. I should be so mad at you right now but…," her face crumpled, "I didn't think I was ever going to see you again and now you're here saying all these things and it feels real even though it shouldn't and nothing in my life has felt real for so long."

"This is real. Give me a chance to show you how real," he whispered against her temple.

She took a deep breath and then shook her head. "I can't do this. I can't," she told him trying to push him away. He loosened his arms but didn't let go.

"You can do anything in the world if it's what you really want. I heard you say you loved me. Why won't you let me in?"

She sniffed miserably. "I'm a coward. I'm too scared."

"Of what?" She didn't answer at first. "Is it me?"

She batted at his shoulder lightly, "Of course I'm not scared of you."

"I don't mean my powers but the life I lead, an alien surrounded by unseen dangers. Is that it? Maybe I don't have the right to expect you to put up with that kind of uncertainty."

"You should know me better than that," she squeaked indignantly. "How is it really any different than if I loved a policeman or a firefighter or a soldier? I am so proud of the good you do and you have finally figured out the difference between taking responsibility and choosing to be a martyr. Do you really think I would be so stupid as to throw away real happiness just because of an unknown danger that might possibly affect the future?

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Isn't that what you're doing right now?

Chloe froze and then shook her head in quick denial. "No, this is different."

"It's not." He ran his hands smoothly up and down her back. "I love you. You love me."

She kept shaking her head. "It's not that simple."

"I think it is. Maybe it wasn't before, but it is now. I know I'm asking a lot, but then you've always been the one to give everything you have. You are the strongest person I know. I can't promise our lives will always be perfect, but I know," he repeated it for emphasize, "but I know that I'll never willing walk away from you. I love you. Stay with me."

"I want to." Her heart squeezed painfully. "You don't know how much I want to, but I can't. Not anymore."

"Why? Tell me," he murmured persuasively. "Chloe, my Chloe," he whispered her name, "tell me why." He let his fingers glide through her hair.

The answer slipped out with a deep sigh. "I don't know how to protect my heart anymore."

"Oh, baby, you don't have too. It's my turn now. I'll watch over your heart and I'm giving you mine. Please just look at me," he begged.

Chloe blinked back the tears clouding her vision. They were standing near one of the stained glass windows. Through the clear center panel, she could see that the night sky was almost ready to surrender to the morning rays glowing on the horizon. She glanced at Clark. Every feature was familiar and dear, but he wasn't the same gangly boy to whom she'd first given her heart. Then again, she wasn't the same brash girl who'd stolen her first kiss.

They'd both changed. When Clark let go of his dream for a normal life and started embracing the real hero he could become, he'd lost some of the country boy innocence she'd found so charming. She'd tried to put her teenage self away as well. Her juvenile jealousies almost ruined her life…almost ruined Clark's life too. She'd struggled hard to learn to think before she acted on her emotions, but her prized maturity came with a cost. She didn't know if she could ever be that impulsive, confident girl again.

Would that girl have known what to do now or could maybe she still be the problem? Perhaps a remnant of that leap before you look child still lingered. Could Oliver have been right? Was she letting her fears blind her from finding the truth? Was she running away without all the facts?

Chloe bit her lip. She knew Clark almost as well as she knew herself. She should be able to tell if he meant what he said; all she had to do was look at him without letting her emotions get in the way. She could do this. She had to do this. Finding out for certain that he didn't have deep feelings for her couldn't hurt much more than just assuming he didn't…could it?

She pushed herself to look, really look at Clark. She blinked away the tears that sprang to her eyes. No, he wasn't the same boy. Gone was the innocence but also gone was the naiveté. As Chloe searched Clark's imploring gaze again, she realized she hadn't been paying close enough attention. Like her crossover from youth to adulthood, the changes to Clark came with costs but they'd left him stronger. The apprehensive boy who in his carelessness or cluelessness caused her so much pain had transformed into a determined man, resolute and unwavering.

He meant every word he said.

"Clark?" Trembling with joy, she said his name as if seeing him for the first time.

Clark knew Chloe almost as well as he knew himself and in that instant he understood his world was changed. Deep inside, he felt something shift and ease. He tenderly pulled her against his chest. Her arms slid around his neck and suddenly she was holding him back. For a moment, Clark felt weak and in the next, he couldn't feel the ground. He tightened his arms and in silence, they clung to each other, drifting off the floor past the window just as the first pink streaks shot across Metropolis's morning sky. It was their second sunrise of the day; the dawn of a new life together.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Epilogue**_

Chloe held the paper up to better admire the headline. So much had happened in the ten months leading up to her biggest front page article ever. The first thing she did was reenroll at Metropolis University to earn the final credits so she could finish off her degree in journalism. Then as planned, she turned over the daily operation of Watchtower to J'onn, Victor and anyone else who ended up on the schedule, but instead of completely walking away, she agreed to fill in when needed. About a month later, she helped for a couple days after Lana passed along a tip concerning her former trainer. He was working with a group called the Suicide Squad. The early warning made neutralizing the budding organization much simpler than expected.

Then Chloe practically moved back into the tower the week Kara returned with an uber creepazoid called Darkseid on her tail. He neutralized local authorities and the military in the first wave of his arrival. The rock monster called himself a god and it took the full strength and talent of Clark, Kara and J'onn combined to contain him while every other hero on the ground dealt with his foot soldiers and elite squad of female furies.

For the first time all the heroes hiding in the shadows fought in the full view of the public, even luring out ones the Justice League had never known. In the end with some help from Jor-El, they'd reopened the boom tube the murderous manipulator arrived through and pushed Darkseid back with one significant change. A new ally with a penchant for swirling capes, pointy cowls and too much black suggested they reset the coordinates for open space. For now at least, the Bringer of Apokoplips was just another asteroid drifting in the frozen vastness.

That night when Clark took her home and they loved away the lingering hurt and fears, she finally accepted the ring he'd been carrying around almost since they'd returned from the arctic.

As she held the paper up, Chloe noticed that her modest, quarter carat, antique diamond caught and beautifully refracted the light coming through the stained glass windows of the Planet's basement. She loved the vintage style and practical size. Clark was paying for it on his reporter's salary and they didn't have giant diamonds in their near future. She knew he could have used his abilities to make a diamond of any size but Clark refused to take the easy way. He wanted to work for what he gave her and she loved him more for the effort.

"I really think the picture captures the essence of the headline, don't you?" She asked, speaking over her shoulder to her fiancé. Clark dropped a notepad in the box on his desk, pushed up his glasses and came to stand behind Chloe. She glanced at the headline and then turned to him again, her quick movement sending her hair tumbling over her eyes. "Hmm? Don't you think?"

He brushed aside the dark silky strands and then leaned forward to inhale the light citrus scent lingering in her hair. Getting used to the change in her hair color had taken him a little while, but now he was surprised how well the darker tone suited her. She decided to let her hair return to its natural shade sometime between helping to stave off Darkseid's take over of the world and not coming up for air the following week while she studied for finals. Later Chloe told him it felt good just to be purely herself, no more disguises.

Well, almost no more. After graduating, Chloe didn't have difficulty getting rehired at the Daily Planet but the day her first article went to print, a fleet of lawyers looking after the estate of Lex Luthor stopped the presses. They slapped an injunction on the Planet, prohibiting use of the name Chloe Sullivan and all variants there of. Seems firing her wasn't enough for Lex.

In a fit of maniacal pettiness, Lex Luthor had copyrighted, trademarked, branded, patented, and registered the use of her name. The Planet's lawyers insisted it couldn't possibly be legal, but the judicial wrangling left behind was complicated enough to take a decade to untangle and until then, management wouldn't even dare print her name in the classifieds.

Surprisingly, a call from Lois seemed to solve the problem. Lois left to work with Perry White at the African assignment desk as she planned, but four months later, she called Chloe via Skype and made three startling announcements. One; she was madly in love, two; she was pregnant, and three; she'd been right the first time and announced that reporting was definitely not her calling.

While on assignment in Oman, Lois met a tall, dark and gorgeous who knocked her up and off her feet and later turned out to be linked to a royal family of one of those tiny but recently fabulously wealthy Arabian Emirates that maintained their independence because of the rare minerals they controlled. The country had a very western attitude and the locals found Lois's brash mix of caring and pushiness charming. The initial misunderstanding parted them but he'd followed her back to the African Bureau and spent the next two months devotedly courting her to be his wife.

Chloe gushed over Lois's huge yellow diamond ring, cried a little over Lois's news about becoming a mommy and then skipped straight to Watchtower to retask a satellite. Lois's intended became the most thoroughly vetted man alive. Martian Manhunter even agreed to spend time sorting through his mind. In the end, he turned out to be exactly what he appeared, a man besotted with his bride, willing and able to devote his life to making her happy while they worked together to improve his nation. After a storybook wedding, Lois's familiarity with Army protocol made them the natural liaison couple to the United States military, at least until the birth of their daughter put them temporarily out of action.

When Lois heard about the mischief Lex left behind, she'd insisted Chloe publish using her name. Though initially reluctant, a scoop about the resurgence of Intergang was too much for Chloe to pass up and the name Lois Lane returned to the folds of the Daily Planet.

Chloe found she didn't mind not seeing her name in print. Having a pseudonym was kind of like having a secret identity and if Clark was going to get one, it was only fair she got one too.

Technically though, Clark's identity had become a whole lot less secret. The blur slowed down so more people could see him and then stopped blurring altogether following the big confrontation with Darkseid. After a flurry of sightings in the sky and across the city, the Red Blue former Blur officially went public. His picture, big enough to be both above and below the fold, showcased the new costume, a bright red and blue skintight ensemble with a touch of yellow to highlight the S on his chest and a large crimson cape draped over his shoulders. The accompanying article explained the letter was an important symbol from his heritage but the three-inch headline simply proclaimed it to mean Superman.

"Clark, are you listening to me?"

"Mmm." He stalled instead of admitting he'd been too busy smelling her hair to pay attention. He straightened his glasses and replayed in his mind what Chloe said. Something about the picture capturing the essence of the headline. He glanced over to reread the headline again.

"**SUPERMAN!**

**A Revealing Look at Metropolis's Hero."**

"What about the picture…wait, you said the suit wasn't too tight."

"No," she snorted, "What I said was the suit looked good." She raked her eyes over the picture. "Believe me, it looks real good."

"I'm still not so sure about the cape."

Chloe rolled her eyes and turned to face him. "Who are you kidding? You love the cape." She refolded the page and dropped it in the cardboard box on her desk before setting her hands on his chest. "Besides," she began as she ran her hand up to his shoulders and then linked her fingers behind his neck, "the video showing the Blur leaping past the Daily Planet the same night that weird tunnel of lights was in the sky clearly showed a long billowing cape. The video went viral. It's a case of give the people what they want."

"That video was so grainy no one could even tell you were there for Superman's supposed new debut." A faint rosy color stained his cheeks and he used air quotes for Superman. Chloe dropped her forehead to his chest and tried to suppress another snort.

When she had better control, she looked up with a grin on her face. "Really? The fit of the suit varies from tight, tighter, and can't possibly be any tighter and it's the name that embarrasses you?"

"It's just," he shifted uncomfortably, "I don't know if I really deserve it."

Her heart flashed in her eyes. She cupped his jaw tenderly and rose up on her tiptoes to place her kiss. "You do, you really do," she said quietly. His arms drew her closer and a playful smile touched his mouth.

"Well, if I was just going by what this Lois Lane wrote in the article then I'd have to agree with you."

She laughed, delighted at his teasing. "Didn't I promise to write nice things about you if you started throwing people around?"

"Hey," he pretended indignance. "I stopped doing that."

She bit her lower lip and then wet both lips. "And for that, you get something extra special." His hands tighten on her waist and he leaned down.

"Oh gees, could you two just get out of here already?" They looked up to see Michael Landes, the staff photographer slash assistant to the new Editor and Chief. He was a dark haired, lanky guy around their age who was still trying to figure out where he wanted his career to go. He held up his hand and turned his head away. "To those of us still dwelling in the basement, we'd like to keep the place generally free from public displays of affection."

Clark cocked his head and Chloe raised an eyebrow remembering two weeks ago when they'd found the copier room occupied by Michael and his girlfriend Sara and no copies being made. "Since when?" She challenged.

"Since Sara dumped me." When their faces fell, he held up his hand again. "Ok, no pity. You know what? Here, this is a special day. The Superman exclusive just came out, Perry is thrilled that promoting you guys paid off so quickly, and the office built for two is ready upstairs under the tiffany lights. So let me grab these last two boxes for you."

"Michael you don't have to do that." Chloe insisted and tried to pull away, but Clark wouldn't let her go.

"Really, it's no problem. I wouldn't have offered if they weren't half empty and I need to run up and see the Chief anyway." He stacked the boxes and left without waiting for further permission. They shouted their thanks as he headed to the elevator.

When Michael was gone, Clark leaned in again. "Now, where were we?"

Chloe played ignorant. "Hmm, let me think. Were you about to tell me who called a little while ago?"

He glanced down and came back up serious for a moment. "Actually, now that you mention it, I was supposed to pass on best wishes and congratulations about tomorrow from Star City."

Chloe lifted her eyebrows. "Dinah called?"

"No, it was Oliver."

"He called you?" She tilted her head. The two heroes put their differences aside when it came to business, but this was the first time Oliver had reached out for personal reasons. "How did he sound?"

"Good. I think Canary was there in the background."

"I'm glad. I think between him and Dinah finally doing something about all those flirty text messages and Oliver's new hobby, he's finally figured out what makes him happy."

"Most people wouldn't consider running for Mayor of Star City a hobby."

"Most people don't moonlight as a CEO and hit their day job as the Green Arrow sometime after midnight. Speaking of secret identities, have I mentioned lately how delicious you look in glasses?" She asked as she pressed more firmly against his chest.

"I can't believe these things actually work as a disguise."

"Jor-El promised the lenses he supplied would have a distorting effect on how you are perceived by people. One glance at those sturdy frames and a fresh order of stereotype is served. All anyone thinks about is pocket protectors, inhalers, and ninety pound weaklings." She ran her hands over his strong shoulders, down his sculpted arms, and up his muscled back all the while shaking her head. "A truly amazing trick."

"One you never fall for, thank goodness."

"I'm not sure if Jor-El gave me a pass on his special hodoo or if I've always had a knack for seeing the man underneath the mystic."

"I just wish I hadn't taken so long to …"

"Hey, no more what ifs. I love you." She held his gaze and watched as her words drove away past regrets. "Not to mention, I really, really like where we are and if getting here meant some very bumpy roads, you can't tell me they weren't worth traveling."

Clark looked at her in wonder. How did she do it? How did she always know just what to say? "I love you so much and I really don't deserve you, but," a dimple dented his cheek as he smiled and Chloe grinned back up at him, "if I'm not allowed to dwell, I'll just have to find another way to show my appreciation." He dropped her backwards into a dramatic dip.

Laughing, she shook her head. "Normally I'm always game for a little appreciation," she snickered when he wagged his eyebrows at her, "but, I think we have to get going. We need to pick your mother up at the airport in an hour."

Martha was flying home to attend the simple ceremony they planned for tomorrow night. Back when they first told Martha they were together as a couple, she looked from Clark to Chloe and immediately started crying. Clark was alarmed until his mother turned to Chloe, pulled her into a hug and whispered, "I always hoped Clark would find happiness, now I know he will." When Chloe also burst into sobs, he left them alone to work through the happy tears.

The wedding was to be elegant but very small. Lois couldn't be there; she didn't want to travel so far with her new baby girl. Kara was flying in though, handling her own travel plans naturally. Most of the team wouldn't be there, just Courtney who begged to be bridesmaid and Bart who heard Mrs. Kent was making a special pre-wedding dinner. Chloe was happy with the modest plans. She really didn't want to chance attracting the wrong kind of attention with something large or flashy. In some ways, the event was more for Martha than anyone. Both Clark and Chloe saw the ceremony as a final formality. Nothing could break the commitment of friendship, love, and trust that they'd already fought hard to forge.

Still, the wedding dress was stunning and the honeymoon lingerie that much more fabulous. She was wearing some of the silky, gorgeous stuff right now.

"True, but that still gives us almost a whole hour." Clark set her on her feet, took her hand and began backing toward the copy room.

Chloe glanced around the empty basement. No one would be in to bother them. She bit her lip, considering. "Somehow I don't thing Senator Kent can be picked up by the Superman Shuttle without attracting the wrong kind of attention."

"Also true, but a mild mannered reporter and his feisty lady love could zip over last minute to baggage claims unnoticed." He gave her hand a little tug and she took a couple steps his direction.

"And the car…"

"I drove it over to the airport parking lot at lunch."

She smiled in approval. "Did I mention how much I admire your new proactive way of thinking?"

"Maybe you meant to tell me this morning, but you were too busy screaming my name while I was…," Chloe hurried to cover his mouth with her hand.

"Ok, it's a good thing you switched call signs. A mouth that filthy should have nothing to do with boy scouts."

"Funny," he pushed up his glasses, feeling lighter and happier than he could ever remember. "I can't help recall you encouraging me in that area."

She lifted her shoulders. "What can I say, I'm writer. I'm a sucker for words."

"So I seduced you with my silver tongue?"

Mischief flashed in her eyes. "Mmm, maybe not just your tongue." She slid her hand along the edge of his waistband. "There is that other appendage I'm rather fond of."

He swallowed. "And I have the filthy mouth?"

Chloe slinked even closer. "It's a sad but true case of gender discrimination. Out of your mouth it's dirty, but out of mine," she stretched up, pressed her lips to his ear, and breathed, "it's erotic."

He fumbled behind his back to get the door to the copy room open. "Care to compare notes on the subject?" he asked, his voice raspy with desire.

Chloe pushed him back through the doorway with both hands. "I'm pretty sure we're done talking."

**The End**


End file.
